A Kidney Needed

[NeedingAdonor]

Just reaching out to anyone to help us find a living donor for my amazing fiance. He is a father of four and going strong. On dialysis now since June and the side effects are horrid but we have faith 2018 is the year of a donor. Is two hours a day of spreading the word enough?

[kinzBravo10]

Hi NeedingAdonor. I am so sorry to hear about your fiancé. I’m not sure what types of avenues you’ve tried, but here are some that may be of help.

- KidneyBuzz’s “Find a Kidney Donor Program”: I’m not sure what your financial situation is, but according to their site, “The Find A Kidney Donor Program is an online advertising effort that seeks to connect Chronic Kidney Disease and Dialysis patients with selfless kind-hearted potential living kidney donors who would not have known about their need or the process of donation otherwise.” I personally have never used it, but it appears to have helped many people. Here is the link if you’d like to check it out: kidneybuzz.com/find-a-kidne...

- Social media can be a great, free resource to help connect you to people around the country. You could create a Facebook and Instagram account specifically for this cause. Use hashtags, add friends, and encourage sharing of your story. You’ll be surprised how quickly these stories can be shared and thus spread. Also, it’s a great way to connect to the younger population out there that will be healthier and more motivated to do an altruistic deed for someone.

- Word of mouth is so powerful. If you have friends and family that work, ask them to share the story at their place of work. This also helps spread the word. I had a son of a woman my mother worked with go and get tested because he heard about my story and wanted to get tested for me (him and I had never known each other prior to that).

- Contact your local radio station. Often, local radio stations want to do things to help the community.

- Contact your local paper. Like the radio stations, they may be looking to do a local community piece.

- Think outside the box. Create a sign for your yard (and friends and families yards). Create a sign to display in the window of your car. Create a shirt to wear. Work to be creative to get your story out there.

I hope these suggestions were a little helpful for you. Don’t forget, God is a powerful force. Don’t forget to pray because he’s always listening. It’s how I got through my transplant journey. You and your fiancé will be in my thoughts. Good luck!

[NeedingAdonor in reply to kinzBravo10]

Thank you so much for all of your ideas. I will implement one each day. With a heart of gold inside my fiancé and God first in our lives, we are praying 2018 is the year we get a donor. Really appreciate people like you that give such great ideas. I'm hoping we all improve our lives through this website. Take care and stay warm.

[KelliC_NKF]

You can find tips for finding a living donor here; kidney.org/transplantation/...

[Bobbiereed NKF Ambassador]

You know social media played a very important role in finding my son his non-related living kidney donor. I helped him by asking every contact we ever had through school, business, church, and socially. The key to his success was each time an organization, school, newspaper or anyone printed or did anything to help us get the word out, I made sure to re-post on Facebook their contribution to helping. I asked again each time that the re-post I was making be shared. It was through this repetitive thanking and re-posting that his donor came to us. His comment was that he saw the repeated posts and things that people were doing to try and help us and then decided he wanted to look into it further. He was a match and the rest is history. Remember--Ask---Thank---Re-post---Ask everyone to share the post!

[NeedingAdonor in reply to Bobbiereed]

I appreciate your advice on this. How is your son doing?

[Bobbiereed NKF Ambassador in reply to NeedingAdonor]

He is doing great. Today he had his 2 year +2 month follow up with the transplant doctor and only a minor adjustment was needed for his anti-rejection medication. He also is participating in three research studies so while there he gave 10 tubes of blood for those. He is in a much better place now. We are all so very thankful to his living donor that stepped up. His donor is a Penn State Alumni like my son and wanted to do something to give back and help another person. He chose to help my son and save his life. Our story is like a "Made for TV Movie". This is the reason I am so active with the National Kidney Foundation and the AAKP--I want to help others in their journey with kidney disease--there is no reason to reinvent the wheel and I do have a lot to share. Hope your journey is a good one and that you are well. Let me know if I can help you...Just Ask!