Hey everyone! My name is Abby. I have gone back and forth quite a bit on whether or not I wanted to make a GoFundMe account or not, but my dear husband made a good point, if anything it will be a nice place to put my story out there and keep updates all in one place.

As many people know, I have been a type one diabetic for nearly 30 years. In the past 14 or so years I have also dealt with some kidney issues on top of that. About 3 years ago is when things really took a turn and my kidneys went from holding steady but not great, to now I’m in End Stage Renal Disease. It happened on a Friday after work, the last day of the year before the holiday. I got a phone call from the doctors office telling me I needed to get to the ER, that my creatinine was so high they didn’t know how I wasn’t more sick. I eventually was transferred to Mercy in Des Moines where they pushed fluids and tried to figure out what was going on. After 2 days of no change, the kidney doc said I had to start emergency dialysis on Monday. I had surgery early that morning to have a cvc placed in my chest and was given dialysis later that day. I had dialysis 2 more times that week before being sent

home on Thursday. I ended up being off work for an entire month because of this.

I did in center hemo dialysis until about May when I had a peritoneal catheter placed in my abdomen so I could do treatments at home. During that time, I decided to try to get listed for a dual kidney and pancreas transplant. The closest option for that was University of Iowa in Iowa City. All testing was completed and we got approved! Since I had been on dialysis my official date on the list went back to the day I started dialysis so I have been listed since the beginning of January 2023.

As many know, there is always a wait time for organs, and since we are going for dual kidney and pancreas, my only option will be with a deceased donor. I can still receive a kidney from a living donor, but my best chance of that kidney not failing as well is to get both done. My blood type is O+ which is fairly common in the Midwest so the wait time is generally around 2.5 years. Since I have been on the list nearly 3 years I decided that maybe we should get listed through another center and expand our area and chances.

Ross and I traveled up to Rochester to the Mayo Clinic November 20th and 21st to get testing and doctor appointments done there as well to hopefully get listed through them as well. All of the doctors we met with said they see zero problems listing me, we just haven’t gotten the official “yes you are listed with us” call yet.

With all of that being said, the recovery time for this kind of surgery is approximately 5 days in the hospital and around 6 weeks in close proximity to the hospital for routine tests and doctor appointments. In those 6 weeks Ross will have to be with me nearly the entire time so not only will I not be working, but he will also not be working. We will have our normal monthly bills to keep up on, as well as paying for lodging and food while we are away from home. That is the main reason I have created this account. I want to be able to take some of that stress and burden off of Ross so we can focus on my healing and getting back home. If you have read this far, thank you so very much for diving into my story! If you feel so inclined to help, I cannot express how much it will truly mean to the both of us. I plan to keep making updates on here to keep everything all on one place.