We are raising funds to cover out-of-pocket expenses for my mom's kidney transplant. She has a hereditary kidney disease called polycystic kidney disease and is on dialysis. Without a transplant this disease will kill her.

 Insurance will cover the medical expenses, but it will not cover everything. We want to make sure that the person who saves my mom's life pays nothing out-of-pocket, and that my mom is able to get the care she needs while she recovers.

Some examples include lost wages for the kidney donor, lost wages for me as I take off work to help my mom recover from this major life-saving surgery, travel expenses for the donor and my mom because the hospital is 90 minutes away, and that means my mom will need to stay in a rented space for a while near the transplant hospital after the surgery.

Those are the big examples but there will be lots of smaller expenses as well.

My mom is a fighter and she's doing everything she can but she's already having complications from dialysis and has been in the hospital multiple times. She needs a transplant from a living donor because of the seriousness of her health.

My grandfather and aunt have already passed away from this disease because they didn't know how to treat it back then. By the time they caught it in my mom it was too late. I and all three of my brothers found out we also have this hereditary disease so we cannot share a kidney with her.

Polycystic kidney disease causes cysts grow all over the kidneys. My mom's kidneys are currently the size of footballs.

The scary part of this disease is that the cysts can spread to her other organs and eventually kill her.