Funds & Qi for Emmy’s New Kidney!

The COUNTDOWN TO KIDNEY DAY is on! Emmy will be having a LIFE-SAVING kidney transplant sometime in the next few weeks or months depending on when the perfect match is found! Emmy has Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD), a non-curable, non-treatable, genetic disease, and is now in end-stage renal failure. With her husband Duncan’s heroic donation of his healthy kidney last month (Duncan, “thank you” will never be enough!), Emmy is now actively enrolled in the paired kidney transplant program. He wasn’t a direct match for her, so his kidney has already saved the life of someone in Ohio. Now Emmy’s doctors are using modern technologies to scan the pool of available kidneys until they find the best possible match for her! It’s happening! But, preparing for, receiving, and recovering from a kidney transplant is a lengthy, intensive, and expensive endeavor.

This is where WE, the COMMUNITY come in!

The timing is a pickle, for sure. Here in WNC, it’s a tough time to be asking for financial support as we are still grieving, and have already been giving huge helpings of our hearts, hands, and dollars to support our people and land’s recovery from Hurricane Helene’s destruction. And now this is equally true for our dear ones in Southern California, in the midst of reeling from great loss, and just beginning the long road to recovery, even as the fires still burn. But here we are. By no choosing of her own, Emmy finds herself in urgent need of a kidney transplant in order to go on thriving into old age! Thankfully, her incredible vitality allowed her to go much longer than most without a transplant but her health and body can no longer wait. If she and her family could postpone this, or financially swing it without help, they would certainly do that rather than further burden folks with this ask during such a fragile time.

But we live in a country where folks are often denied coverage for life-saving care and treatments. Sadly, Emmy is one of those folks. During Duncan’s recent surgery, they were shocked to learn how much would not be covered by insurance for the upcoming surgeries and on-going management of her health post-transplant. There is a real and heavy worry about the cost of it all and the impact that this debt could have, not only on her care and literal survival, but her ability to stay afloat in the years that follow. There has already been an accumulation of bills related to years of monitoring, consulting, planning, and preventing.

There will be three very expensive surgeries: the kidney donation surgery that Duncan has already undergone, Emmy’s transplant, and the double nephrectomy (both of her diseased kidneys will eventually be removed). There will be expenses related to lifelong care and management: labs, consultations, medications, and holistic health support. Finally there are the many “hidden” costs of supporting this: loss of income for her, for her husband, and for her required care-giver for at least a month, travel back and forth to Emory, extended hospital stays, hotel/rentals near the hospital for care-giver and family for weeks or months, home and pet care while gone, and the personal financial contributions needed to keep her business viable while she recuperates. The true cost of this is exorbitant!

So we, her community, need to be a deep well of love and resources for Emmy and her family to draw on. Through our support, she will not only be able to receive all the treatment and care she needs to live, but will be able to heal and return to a life not ruined by medical debt. And most beautifully, she will feel bolstered by the deep sense of love and belonging that your giving expresses. So thank you for understanding why, in the midst of rebuilding from a natural disaster, we (Emmy, Duncan, and her care-team) need to humbly ask for financial help. Thank you a thousand times in advance for your offering!

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Because Emmy is such an incredibly healthy and magical being, she has lived with ADP-KD for most of her life without needing major interventions and without any obvious signs of illness to the outside world. Emmy is usually the one supporting others and reveling in the beauty of this one precious life! But now, possibly for the first time ever, she is experiencing some fear as her physical body is feeling the symptoms of kidney decline, and she is struggling to feel her usual steadfast faith in her vitality and magic (and this is saying a lot for a woman who overcame Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at age 21 while caring for her own baby!). So depending on a new kidney in order to live, and one that requires personal sacrifice from someone else no less, has been a pretty life-altering and identity-challenging place to find herself.

She has always been a bad-ass DIYer, a truly talented healer (for herself and her community), an uncannily effective manifester, the mom who made everything fun, and a big time give-it-her-all kinda gal when it comes to helping humans and animals alike. This deep and abiding belief in her vitality and unfailing life long spirit of can-do when it comes to just about anything is probably what has allowed her to live so well long past when most people with this disease either need a transplant or die. But in the fall of 2023, Emmy’s mom, who had lived with her for decades, providing her children with the beauty of a multi-generational household, began to quickly decline and Emmy found herself nursing her ailing mother and finally providing hospice to ease her dying. After Ellie’s death, Emmy experienced another great personal stress, and her grief and shock led to a sudden and rapid decline in her kidneys’ functioning. Her kidneys are filled with cysts, making her once half-pound kidney now weigh over 25 pounds and unable to filter her blood as needed. It is pressing on other organs and causing pain, leaching minerals from her bones, and zapping her life force which until recently has always felt vital and strong.

Emmy doesn’t take this life for granted. She takes delight in simple pleasures, pauses to feel awe at the natural beauty all around, laughs easily, loves and spreads love, and generously uses her wisdom and skill to bring comfort and healing to her friends, patients, and pets as if it were her duty in this life. When it became known that she would need a transplant, seven people (7!) immediately stepped up and offered theirs. Two of those were people that had just met her and were so taken by her and her story that they volunteered! I mean, that says a lot about the specialness of this human… people were lining up to give her their own precious organs! None of them were a strong enough match to give a direct donation but their generosity of spirit has left a lasting mark on Emmy’s heart.

So c’mon, let’s keep that generosity going and help her slow down and receive. Let’s show Emmy that we got her. That we will hold her (and her family) up now, until her magic is fully felt and buzzing again. Cause what is that magic but life Qi! And where does QI originate but in the KIDNEYS!

✨YOUR FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTION = NEW KIDNEY ⚕️✨ (and ongoing medical support)

✨⚕️NEW KIDNEY = QI & MAGIC RESTORED ✨

✨MAGIC RESTORED = EMMY’s LONG LIFE ✨

And the truth is, your contribution saves more than just her life… it saves her family and our whole community a great suffering. You are quite literally ensuring Health. And Peace. And Love. For her. Her children. Her husband. For all of us that love her. And for all of those who will receive her love and care and healing once she is well again.

We are hopeful with the community’s generous support we can easily raise this amount to help our beloved Emmy have a long, beautiful life of good health! Thank you for donating and for sharing this fundraiser with your friends and family.

Every contribution large and small is literally saving Emmy’s life.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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