My name is Dayna and my mother is in end stage renal failure. She has been on dialysis for nearly 2 years waiting for a donor. Her diet is very restricted and she sleeps hooked up to a machine that takes on the task of removing wastes that her kidneys can no longer process. It’s a painful filling and draining transaction that sometimes leaves her in tears. Her life has become monthly blood tests, home deliveries of dialysis fluids that require a whole room for storage, shots to boost her red blood cells, constant blood pressure monitoring. Your kidneys are responsible for so much more than you realize. The waiting list for a kidney is heartbreakingly long. People die waiting for donors. It seemed there was no end in sight. Until Sara, my partner and most favorite person on the planet, decided to test to be a living donor. As fate would have it, she is the same blood type as my mom and is in perfect health according to her initial bloodwork results. YAAAAAY!!!


So why am I asking for help? We knew little of organ donation processes and have learned that while my mom’s insurance will cover most of Sara’s medical procedures, it will not cover travel, lodging or lost wages. Sara needs to travel to Colorado, where my mom lives, for the procedure. I would like to be there as well for both of them. Sara’s recovery can take up to 3 weeks and that is where you come in. We own a very small mobile grooming business that will be halted during this process. With travel expenses on top of bills and rent, I won’t have any vacation or sick time to use. I can only make money while I work. So I’m asking for all the help we can get. Sara will need to fly to Colorado twice for preliminary testing and surgery. I will need to fly out with her for the surgery. Our living expenses are around $2500/mo. I’m estimating round trips to run anywhere from $3-500 each with bags through Frontier. The next step of testing is for Sara to fly to Colorado where she will meet with the transplant team for 8 hours of evaluation including chest X-rays, abdominal CT scans and additional bloodwork. If that goes well, the surgery will be scheduled hopefully for January. 

I have updated our goal after learning that Sara will not be able to work with me for at least two months after the surgery. Unfortunately she won’t be able to lift more than 10 lbs for awhile and that’s really the bulk of our business! It also limits the amount of dog interaction she can have (jumpers!), so we are working on other options at the moment but would like to be as prepared as possible.

 Every day that passes is another restless night for my mom who spends 10 hours hooked to a machine. These funds will literally save her life. She can’t swim. She can’t walk for extended periods of time. We were very fortunate this year to win tickets to Walt Disney World on the radio and she needed a scooter to go through the park. Please help her cut the tubes that hold her prisoner. Every little bit helps! Thank you.