Kim the Bim Needs a Kidney

Hi. I'm Kim. In 1994, I got cancer in my right leg. Osteosarcoma, they called it. The doctors replaced 17 inches of my skeleton with titanium, stretching from my lower femur to my upper tibia, including my right knee. I also received massive amounts of chemotherapy, which led to a blood disorder called Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). My only hope for survival was a stem-cell bone marrow transplant. I qualified for a clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and received the transplant, which required complete immunosuppression. Somehow, during my recovery, my kidneys began to fail. No one is sure exactly why, but the condition is called nephritic thrombotic microangiopathy.

I began dialysis in September of 2011, which continues to this day. I have been on the kidney transplant waiting list at the Mayo Clinic for seven years. During that time, I also contracted shingles in my right eye, as well as breast cancer. My husband and I were in pretty good shape with our ducks lined up, but then he lost his job of 19 years as a middle-school teacher, and he has been unable to find a new one. So we burned through our savings just to pay the bills for the last 14 months, and now, we need your help. Transplants are quite expensive, and the biggest cost is the medication you need after the surgery. My monthly prescription costs are estimated to be around $4,000.

I was called by Mayo on August 31, 2019, to possibly receive a donor kidney. We went to Mayo, and were advised to not accept the organ, because without adequate funding, I could expect to lose the kidney within six months. If you were me, what would you do? I need your help. Please!