My husband Tony is only 35 years old, and for the past six years, he has been fighting kidney failure with everything he has. Three times a week, he spends four hours at a time hooked up to a dialysis machine, a treatment that keeps him alive, but slowly takes pieces of him with it each time. We have two little boys who love their dad more than anything. They see him struggle and try so hard to help in ways no child should have to. Tony does his best to stay strong for them, showing up for baseball games, tucking them in at night, but there are many days when dialysis leaves him too exhausted to even get off the couch. That is the part that breaks all of our hearts the most.

For six years, we have been waiting for the call that a kidney is available. Tony stays hopeful. He says "one day I'll get the call," but lately, that hope has been harder for him to hold onto. The wait is long, and the toll on his body, spirit, and our finances is real. Tony can no longer work due to his condition, which means I am the only one bringing in income for our family: two young boys, a mountain of medical bills, and a household to keep running on one salary.

We want to be clear: you cannot pay for a kidney. Living donor transplants happen through love and generosity, not money. What this GoFundMe is for is the mountain of medical expenses that pile up every single month while Tony waits. Dialysis three times a week. Medications. Specialist visits. Lab work. All the things insurance doesn't fully cover, and often doesn't cover at all. These costs are relentless and they don't stop.

Tony is blood type O positive. A compatible living donor must be O positive or O negative. A living donor transplant offers the best outcome and the fastest path to giving Tony his life back, the life our boys deserve to have with their dad. If you are O positive or O negative and would like to find out if you could be a living donor match for Tony, please visit the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Living Donor page: https://my.atriumhealth.org/myatriumhealth/publicforms.asp?mode=showform&formname=LivingDonorWake

Every dollar donated goes directly toward helping our family stay afloat through Tony's medical bills while he waits for that life-saving call. Every share matters. Every prayer matters. Every dollar matters. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Danielle & our family, Asheville, NC