Cathi could never imagine that a simple typo would play a significant role in her husband’s transplant journey. In 2019, David received life-changing news that he was in kidney failure. Shaken by this diagnosis, his wife, Cathi, went to social media to gather advice on finding a donor. She typed in her county and stumbled […]
Power Player – Hetty
Written by Hetty C. Haden Two and a half years ago, I received a kidney for transplant from a live donor, whom I had never known in real life or in person. We met only because we were both Baltimore Orioles baseball fans. Here is our story: As we all know, the Baltimore Orioles had […]
Power Players – Katherine and MaryBeth
Everyone’s weight loss journey is unique, but Katherine’s began as an attempt to save her daughter MaryBeth’s life. MaryBeth was a vibrant and energetic 5-year-old but her doctors were concerned that she was not growing. They put her through a series of tests which led to referrals to 10 different specialists. She finally was referred […]
Power Player – Mike
Mike had never thought about organ donation before – and didn’t even realize there is a need for organs. However, that all changed when he attended a family event and learned that his cousin, Brenda, needed a kidney transplant. Since Brenda was a distant cousin, Mike introduced himself, and after they began talking, he immediately […]
Power Player – Susan
Three years ago, Susan wanted to become more physically fit and learn about overall nutrition, health, and wellness, so she began searching for a personal trainer to help her achieve those goals. While exercising with her trainer, Matt, he mentioned that he would be visiting his hometown for a while to see his sister, Shannon, […]
Power Player – Sara
Alport Syndrome, a disorder characterized by kidney disease, is very familiar to Sara and her family. She watched her mother experience the complications of Alports over the years, along with her cousin, her older brother, and other family members. When Sara’s brother, Paul, was around seven years old, they recognized abnormalities in his kidney function. […]
Power Player – EJ
In 2016, EJ’s brother was experiencing kidney failure; undergoing dialysis, and waiting for a kidney transplant. EJ described his brother then as “shy,” “reserved” and never someone to ask anything from anyone—especially asking anyone to consider donating a kidney. He could remember how weak his brother was. His brother struggled with daily activities he should […]
Power Player – Eryn
My name is Eryn and I am a kidney transplant recipient. I was born with congenital abnormalities and had multiple surgeries throughout my childhood to include a nephrectomy at the age of five. My singular functioning kidney allowed me to live a normal life, participating in social and extracurricular activities with the occasional doctor visit and testing […]
Power Player – Linda
My name is Linda Walker, and I am a kidney donor and recipient. I’m married to Charles Walker and we have two children and one grandson. In 1998, my brother needed a kidney transplant. Out of my eight siblings, I was a perfect match. I went through several weeks of testing. On March 31, 1998, I donated […]
Power Player – Shawn
Shawn recently celebrated his first kidney transplant anniversary, thanks to his friend and living donor, John. Over 15 years ago, Shawn met John at a church retreat in Miami. The two became fast friends, and Shawn shared that he had Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). When Shawn explained how PKD leads to kidney failure, John immediately […]
Power Player – Roy
Roy is a store manager at a regional furniture retailer called Raymour & Flanigan. In 2019, Roy’s store gained a new associate, Randy. Randy had requested a transfer to a store that would make his commute easier, as he is the caregiver to his 21-year-old son with brain cancer. Two weeks after Randy started, he […]
Power Player – Kathie
Kathie Boyette is no stranger to health ailments. Having Type I Diabetes throughout her life meant always having to rely on medication to adjust her blood sugar levels. But, after years of taking insulin, her pancreas was beginning to fail and a transplant seemed imminent. At first, Kathie thought a transplant was a drastic move, […]
Power Player – Tyler
Several years ago, Tyler overheard a conversation about living kidney donation. This topic always stuck with him, although it would take several years for the idea to come to fruition. Tyler was in a work accident in 2009, which left Tyler with an amputated foot. “I learned to live with missing parts, so I knew […]
Power Player – Ken
Ken was diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease at the age of 24. This diagnosis would eventually lead him to a kidney transplant. Ken remembers his diagnosis clear as day. It started as a typical day, but after dinner, Ken felt pains in his stomach area and dead pains in his back. These pains had been […]
Power Player – Louise
Dialysis has always been terrifying for Louise. When she was just ten years old, she experienced a dialysis center for the first time with her mother, who was diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). Just eight years later, Louise was diagnosed with PKD. Although the news was devastating, it was not a surprise. PKD is […]
Power Player – Randene
Written by Randene R. Meet Gary, 72 years young with a now fully functioning kidney he received from his daughter, Randene, at the age of 33. At the early age of 18 during a routine physical, Gary’s family doctor discovered excessive albumin in his urine. Concerned with kidney failure, over the next 7 or 8 […]
Power Player – Suzy
Suzy’s journey to transplant began nearly 30 years ago when she was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease. She got tested after her father, who passed away waiting for a kidney transplant, was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease. She was fine for a while, but by 2008, she was told that she needed to go on […]
Power Player – Rhonda
Two years ago, Rhonda’s father went into kidney failure because of his diabetes. At the time, he was 74 years old and just starting home dialysis. After a year of dialysis, Rhonda told her father that he should attempt to get a kidney transplant. She offered to be his living donor, but he declined her […]
Power Player – Vernell
In 2015, Vernell received news that he needed a heart transplant. His doctor told him to pack his bags – he required hospitalization while he waited for a new heart. He suffered from congestive heart failure and spent six months in the hospital waiting for an organ donor. The wait was difficult for Vernell and […]
Power Player – Matt
Matt has been dealing with kidney disease for his entire life, all 42 years of it. It has not knocked him down but made him stronger. Matt was born with Eagle-Barrett’s Syndrome. When he was born, he had about 10% function of his kidneys. The first ten years of his life, he considered it “normal.” […]
Power Player – Vicky
Vicky’s journey began 40 years ago when she was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease at 26 years old. At 26, she was told her kidneys were functioning at 75%. In her 40s, she started seeing a nephrologist, who monitored her kidney disease. She was told she would need a kidney transplant. Although transplantation was not […]
Power Player – Tara
On December 12, 2017, Tara found out that her dad, Todd, was in end-stage renal failure and would need a kidney transplant. Tara immediately knew that she wanted to become his living donor. Todd hesitated to allow Tara to donate her kidney. However, she finally convinced him that it was safe for her to donate […]
Power Player – Julie
Julie knows the importance of making “One Transplant for Life” a reality – she is the recipient of three kidney transplants. Julie has battled kidney disease her entire life. Her parents found out when she was just six weeks old, and she lived with only 25% kidney function until she was 11 years old. Thankfully, […]
Power Player – Patrick
In April 2013, during a visit with my endocrinologist, I found out that I only had 35% kidney function. She referred me to a nephrologist. My nephrologist informed me of certain foods I needed to avoid so that I could prolong going on dialysis as long as possible. While I had to wait this thing […]
Power Player – Michele
Michele always assumed that the only way to be an organ donor was to designate it on your driver’s license. However, after a string of unexpected events, she became a living donor to a woman she had never met. Michele lives in Florida, but her kidney now lives in California. The origin of her story […]
Power Player – Megan
Megan was a 24-year-old teacher when she was diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. She was told she would need a kidney transplant. When she found out she needed a kidney transplant, she was terrified. The internet was still new at the time, but she did as much research as she could. Her transplant center connected […]
Power Player – Alana
Alana was just 13 years old when she was diagnosed with kidney disease. It took ten years for her to require a kidney transplant, and thankfully, her brother volunteered to be her living donor. The living donation allowed Alana to bypass dialysis, so she was very excited (as well as a little nervous) when she […]
Power Player – Charles
My sister Nancy is seventy. When she was twelve her kidneys began to fail, triggered possibly by an autoimmune response to being stung by a swarm of bees. For the next six years, I watched as medications, needles, blood tests, doctors, hospitals, and finally kidney failure consumed her life. This was the sixties and artificial […]
Power Player – Carol
To say that I was an unlikely kidney donor is an understatement. If my high school yearbook had had a “Least Likely to Be a Living Kidney Donor” category, that would have been me. I’ve always been a wimp: I faint at flu shots, IVs, blood tests. And yet, in June 2006, I donated a […]
Power Player – Ken
Ken was just ten years old when he was diagnosed with kidney disease. His doctors tried to treat the condition for years, but by the time Ken was in college, it was clear he would need a kidney transplant. During his second year of medical school, Ken’s father volunteered to be a live donor and […]
Power Player – Holly
I was the youngest by three minutes. So, I suppose being a twin help me to fight, to give me the will to live from day one. The doctors knew something was wrong. I don’t think we ever did get a satisfying answer as to why I was sick. I ended up being the youngest […]
Power Player – Brooke
March 28th, 2018, marks our one-year Kidneyversary. Last year I was a 38-year-old wife and mother of 2 boys who were 7 and 9, and I decided to be a kidney donor for my brother-in-law. This would be his second kidney transplant. My brother in law, Rob, was diagnosed almost 15 years ago with FSGS. This […]
Power Player – Cynthia
Cynthia Infante is a two-time kidney transplant recipient. She was born in 1972 in Arizona and has lived there ever since. She was first diagnosed with kidney disease at the age of 15 and at the age of 19 she was placed on hemodialysis. While on dialysis, she remembers sitting for three to four hours […]
Power Player – Anna
I never had any problems growing up and was “normal” for all I knew. I was 21 years old and in my 2nd week of nursing school when I became short of breath for over 3 days. Finally, I went to the ER because of it. That day, I went from being “normal” to finding […]
Power Player – Matt
My name is Matt Kishbaugh. I will be 35 on January 28, 2018. I live in Pennsylvania. My family and I know what it’s like to deal with kidney disease. I was 13 when I was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease. Polycystic kidney disease is where a cluster of cysts form inside your kidney. The […]
Power Player – Rachel
Written by: Rachel Adams I donated altruistically to a woman in Pennsylvania. I think I’ll always remember the moment they told me her creatinine levels had gone down to normal. The sun was shining outside my hospital window and my mom and best friend were in the room. I didn’t know how many transplants were […]
Power Player – Jennifer
When Jennifer was 14, she was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease (PKD). Her journey eventually led her to dialysis and to the transplant waiting list. On September 9, 2016, she received a phone call around midnight. Her doctor asked her about dialysis and when she had last eaten. Then, she found out that a kidney […]
Power Player – April
After a minor surgery in 2010, April discovered that she had chronic kidney disease. She then found out that she would need a kidney transplant. Unlike many patients with kidney disease, April never went on dialysis. She admits that she was too stubborn to start. Instead, she attempted to line up a living donor, although […]
Power Player – Stephen
Stephen was born with a very rare kidney disease called Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease (ARPKD) that affects both the kidneys and liver. The disease was discovered during his mother’s 27th week of pregnancy during a routine ultrasound. Doctors gave Stephen a less than 1% chance of living more than a few hours after he […]
Power Player – Riley
By: Riley Tucker My name is Riley Tucker and I am sixteen years old. When I was seven years old I had been diagnosed with strep throat for nine consecutive months. By this time the doctors were starting to think there had to be some underlying cause. My family was recommended to go to Arkansas Children’s […]
Power Player – Edward
Right before Edward’s 21st birthday, he was not celebrating. Instead, he was finding out that he had end-stage renal disease during a routine checkup. He would later find out that he needed a kidney transplant to survive. Edward had been excelling in school and sports, and now, everything was changing. Initially, his reaction was, “Why […]
Power Player – Jen
By: Jen White Hi – I’m Jen – @mytransplantlife on Instagram. My Instagram page is educational in nature, as I’m a Registered Nurse with a graduate degree, having worked as a nurse educator, combining my health knowledge with my own kidney disease experience. I was diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease in my early 20s, as […]
Power Player – Talitha
By Talitha Juristo On March 4, 2016, after some routine lab work, I got a call from my doctor to go straight to the ER because my hemoglobin was dangerously low and my creatinine was high. Once at the hospital, they quickly realized I was in end-stage renal failure. 30 years of being a Type […]
Power Player – Lisa Barker
After living a healthy and happy life, Lisa suddenly discovered she had a condition that only one in a million people develop. Soon after, she was put on the waiting list for an immediate liver transplant. Now, she and her husband are advocates for organ donation and transplant research. By Lisa Barker 2014-the start to […]
Kidney Recipient, Angelica Hale, Performs at America’s Got Talent Finale
10-year-old, Angelica Hale, has been stirring up a lot of national attention with her incredible voice and journey with kidney disease. At the age four, she was diagnosed with double pneumonia, which caused both of her kidneys to fail. She was on dialysis for 18 months before she received a transplant from her mother. Angelica […]
Selena Gomez Receives Kidney Transplant
Selena Gomez just announced on Instagram that she underwent a secret kidney transplant over the summer to help in her fight against Lupus. She posted the news on Instagram early Thursday morning as an explanation on why she had been inactive during the summer. She received the gift of life from longtime friend and actress, Francia […]
Power Player – Bill
Bill considered himself to be a “lucky boy” growing up. He had a great relationship with his father; they played catch and watched baseball games for hours. He grew up in a Catholic household, where he attended church every week and was an altar boy with his brother. However, his perfect childhood came to an […]
Power Player – Christine
On October 24th, 1998, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Christine Galan became the first heart and liver transplant recipient in the Western United States. It was a new procedure, but Christine never doubted that it was for the best. Christine was born in Jamaica and moved to San Diego as a child. When she was a […]
Power Player – Jean
By Jean Mihich One never knows what journey we will undertake in this lifetime. I must say that my journey as a person with kidney disease began in infancy and continues to this day. It has been a series of small steps towards awareness and understanding, which was first started by my parents who had […]
Power Player – Mary
By the time Mary was 12 years old, she had already received her second kidney transplant. After being on peritoneal dialysis for two years at 3-years-old, Mary’s kidneys completely failed by the age of 5. At 5 years old, Mary received her first kidney transplant. Both of Mary’s transplants were from deceased donors, as none […]
Power Player – Rachel
After watching a Katie Couric news segment in 2010, Rachel Bennett Steury made a decision that would change the life of someone she never met. The program was on kidney chains, kidney donation, and organ donation. Rachel never knew that kidney donation was possible while still alive. “I felt like Katie Couric was talking directly […]
Power Player – Glenda
When 15-year-old Glenda Daggert was diagnosed with Type I diabetes in the early 1960s, “you hid diabetes.” In spite of her illness, Glenda went on to earn degrees in physical education and instructional technology, then teach for several years. She married Ira Copperman, moved to New York, and joined IBM. After 30 years with the […]
Power Player – Cheryl
A PowerPlayer is anyone who supports the life-saving cause of organ donation and transplantation, from the patients who receive transplants to the donors and their families who make those transplants possible, to the medical professionals who arrange and perform the life-saving miracle of transplantation. They serve to remind us that we all have the Power2Save. […]
Power Player – Tom
Reading can often change our lives or make us think differently. In Tom’s case, reading a blog post from political writer, Virginia Postrel, changed his life and saved another. After reading the blog, he discovered that Postrel planned to donate one of her kidneys to author, Sally Satel. Although Tom did not know anyone who […]
Power Player – Crissi
After overhearing a conversation between her daughter and her daughter’s friend, Crissi made a decision that would change the life of a man she had never met. When her daughter was in high school, Crissi overheard a casual conversation that her daughter was having with a friend. The friend’s father needed a kidney transplant and […]
AST President Featured in USA Today
The President of the American Society of Transplantation (AST), Ron Gill, has been featured in an article published by Media Planet and included in USA Today. The article highlights the challenges that transplant recipients face such as organ rejection, medications, and the long waiting list. In addition, the article touches on the importance of the upcoming […]
Power Player – Lisa Washington
Lisa was born with scarred kidneys. By age 7, she was diagnosed with kidney disease. At 7, Lisa didn’t quite know what that meant, but thankfully, she was able to have a normal childhood. She always knew she would eventually need a kidney transplant, but she continued to live her life, got married, and had […]
Power Player: Lou Ann
There are a number of online pleas for living organ donations for those in need of a kidney transplant. It is a difficult ask for those in need, and it is a significant sacrifice for those who choose to answer. Our latest Power Player, Lou Ann, was surfing the web one day in 2014 when […]
Father’s Day Power Player: Alice
With Father’s Day upon us, most of us who are lucky enough to have our father’s in our lives are finalizing plans, buying gifts, and signing cards. It’s an important day to recognize. Our fathers are part of the reason we were given life. Our latest Power Player, Alice, won’t be able to find the […]
Power Player: Jason Nothdurft
Community service has always inspired Jason Nothdurft. For 66 years, his grandfather served at his local volunteer fire company, followed by his father, who served 25 years, and Jason, who has served five years. His family has been recognized as the first family in New Jersey to have three generations volunteering in the same department […]
22 Years After His Death, Nicholas Green’s Heart Stops Beating
By Reg Green In 1994, The Green family was on vacation in Italy when tragedy struck. Their son, Nicholas, was killed by highway robbers. His parents, Reg and Maggie, decided to donate his organs, which saved the lives of seven people and tripled organ donation in Italy. Today, Reg Green continues to speak out about […]
Lindsey’s Story: One Transplant for Life
At only 14 years old, Lindsey Duquette bravely testified before the FDA about the importance of organ transplant research and organ donation. As a young child, she contracted a rare kidney disease that resulted in hundreds of hospitalizations and the need for a kidney transplant. Luckily, her father was the perfect match. Hear her story […]
Power Player: Steven Turner
Seven years ago, Steven Turner made a “Good Samaritan” decision – he became a living donor to a stranger. His story is truly heartwarming, as his selfless act kept another family whole. At the time, there was local news coverage about a young family that was facing the nightmare of kidney failure. The couple had […]
Manchester United and England Former Player Receives Kidney Transplant
Former Manchester United and England player, Andrew Cole, has received a kidney transplant. The 45-year-old suffered kidney failure after contracting an airborne virus in 2015. Manchester United released a statement, which indicated that Cole will be taking a break from his club ambassador role during his recovery. On behalf of Cole, the club issued the following statement, […]
Power Player: Todd Gambill
We had the opportunity to chat with kidney recipient, Todd Gambill, on the one year anniversary of his kidney transplant. Todd shared his incredible story, although he insists that it is his donor’s story. When Todd was just a year old, he was diagnosed with a Wilm’s Tumor, which is the most common type […]
Transplant Pioneer, Dr. Thomas E. Starzl, Dies at 90
Thousands of lives are saved every year by organ donation and transplantation. The treatment of transplantation has allowed recipients to experience longer lives and has given them a second chance at life. This treatment, however, would not be possible without the researchers and surgeons who perform these acts. Dr. Thomas E. Starzl was known as […]
