Kidney Donation Recovery
Hi, my name is Isaiah and I'm 22 years old and I live in Kansas
I am going to be a kidney donor for a family friend Jay who lives in Virginia who first received a kidney transplant in 2000, that kidney stopped working in 2014 and has been on dialysis since March 2015. For those unfamiliar with the transplant surgery the recovery time is 5 to 7 weeks long and I'm that time I will be on bed rest and then therapy and will not be allowed to work my day job. Now Jay's insurance will pay for all hospital tests and the transplant procedure and he is graciously paying for my plane tickets to and from Virginia. This GoFundMe is to help pay for my expenses during the recovery period including rent, goceries, phone and for my student loan payment.
I feel so grateful and blessed that I am a blood and tissue match to be able to donate to Jay so he can continue to live his life to the fullest and spend more time and energy with his family.
I recently had my last appointment for tests and I am cleared to be able to donate and we are aiming to have the procedure mid to late May any amount helps and I sincerely appreciate it.
Jay’s Story
Jay was diagnosed in his thirties with Follicular Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). People, like Jay with FSGS, have scarring in sections of the glomeruli (filter), which is the essential part of the kidney that cleans the blood. The scarring is not reversible. Jay has Primary FSGS because the disease happened on its own without a known cause. Jay reacted poorly to a high dosage of prednisone in 1999, which caused renal failure. His mother selflessly gave Jay a kidney. The transplant was a success. Both mother and son recovered, and Jay was given the gift of a healthy, vibrant life. He became a father to three children, pursued hobbies, and had a successful career.
In 2015, the transplanted kidney failed. Jay has been on dialysis since March 2015. He has had many serious side effects from kidney failure. Life has been difficult. Jay has been hospitalized for a number of surgeries that we believe probably came from his underlying kidney condition, such as removal of a kidney due to cancer and removal of his gallbladder. Jay has already had two surgeries in 2017. However, the scarier incidences for Jay and his family have been the unplanned trips to the hospital. He found himself in the Intensive Care Unit over Halloween this past year and was unconscious for three days. This frightening experience showed Jay that he was pushing too hard to do everything in his life as if he were healthy. Jay has had to step back from his job. He has tried to rely more on others to take care of the activities in life that most people take for granted, which is very difficult for him to do.
After the Halloween incident, Jay began experiencing a lack of hope, given that his condition further deteriorated in 2016. Although he regularly follows his peritoneal dialysis regiment, kidney diet, and keeps up with his numerous medical appointments, it seems like it is not enough to keep him out of the hospital and able to participate in life. We are grateful that he can do his dialysis at home, but as with the majority of kidney patients, there are feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, depression and recognition of our own fragility/mortality. Jay is an O positive blood type, which we have been told has the longest wait time for deceased donors (approximately 4-6 years). A significant percentage of potential recipients die while waiting on a kidney.
Words are woefully inadequate to express how much a living donation would transform Jay’s life. It is like being saved from a deserted island years after surviving a shipwreck. This is the hope that a living donor like Isaiah gives us. It makes faith, humanity, love, and compassion real. Jay and his family have been reticent about expressing the depth of this gift, out of consideration for Isaiah. Living donation is an individual, life changing choice. We are in awe of even the thought of Isaiah making this precious gift to Jay.
It is Jay and his family’s hope to lessen the financial impact on Isaiah as much as possible. We are grateful for any support you are able to give to Isaiah since he will not be able to work while he is recovering from surgery and will have living expenses while he is in Richmond, Virginia for the kidney transplant. Please keep both of our families in your prayers.
Leftover proceeds will be used to start a charity foundation to advocate for living donors and help cover expenses from donating
