Here goes. My mom, Cynthia Canfield, is a loving, funny, incredibly strong single mother to myself and my younger sister. She has dedicated her life to caring for and supporting us on her own, but now it is her turn to be cared for. My mom has Poly-cystic Kidney Disease and is currently in Stage 5 Renal Failure. Poly-cystic Kidney Disease is when cysts grow inside your kidneys and those cysts eventually become so large that kidney function is impaired and stops altogether. She has lived with this disease since her diagnosis in her 20's but it is only recently that she's taken a turn for the worse. Healthy people are at 100% kidney function; she is at 11%. This means her kidneys are only functioning at 11% of the normal rate. Her body cannot filter out the toxins in her blood and they build up, causing extreme fatigue, blood toxicity, extreme high blood pressure, and can cause damage to the heart, brain, liver, pancreas, and other organ tissue. She is already feeling the fatigue and pain that comes with this, and has not been able to work or leave the house in general nearly as much as she could even a month ago.

     There is no way to reverse or slow down this disease. The recommended course of action is a kidney transplant, and until that can happen, to start dialysis. We were initially told (before she had gotten down to 11%) that she could live possibly up to 3-5 years before a transplant was necessary. Now, the timeline we are given is much, much shorter. She is going to do Peritoneal Dialysis, which is when a catheter is permanently inserted into the abdomen in order to fill/drain the body with a solution which will draw the toxins out of her blood, and do some of the job that her kidneys cannot. The dialysis will help, but nothing can in the way that a transplant could. As I type this, she is in surgery for the dialysis catheter to be placed. I sit in my car in the parking lot of the hospital trying to muster up every ounce of courage I have to type this out and ask for help. After this surgery, she will not be able to work for some time in order to heal, and even after healing she will not be able to work much as dialysis is not a "cure", but a band-aid. Urgently, this is what we need help with. As she is a single mom, all of the financial burden in our house and family of 3 falls on her. She is a massage therapist and we live paycheck to paycheck; I am a college student and am working 2 jobs in order to help us survive, but it will not be enough on its own. Her insurance is only covering a fraction of the surgery she's undergoing today, which makes us extremely worried for the transplant. We are left with a $1,500 hospital bill that we don't have the money for, the next month or so of rent, utilities, groceries and gas that she can't work to afford, and the knowledge that - much sooner than we'd initially expected - my mom will have to have a transplant that will be well over $200,000, be out of work for recovery afterwards, and take anti-rejection drugs which will total ~$17,000 a year for the rest of her life.

     She is in the process of getting put on transplant lists for hospitals in our area, but I am going to get tested to see if I'm a match. If I can donate a kidney to her, I absolutely will. If I can not, she will have to wait on the list until she can get a viable kidney and continue on with dialysis. This whole process scares me to death because she is my mom, and we all believe our mothers are invincible until they suddenly aren't. To know my mother is to love her; she is a ray of sunshine in the lives of everyone around her. She is my best friend, my confidante, and the most important person in my life. For her sake, it is time to admit that we can't do this alone. If you can donate, literally anything at all will help us. If not, please just share this on any platform you can think of.  Help of any kind is tremendously appreciated.

Thank you.