heather frattone

LIVING Kidney DONOR NEEDED

My name is Heather, I am 27 years old and have been on hemodialysis for three years. I was diagnosed in April 2016 with end stage renal disease. While I was in the hospital I had a kidney biopsy done in hopes of finding out what caused my kidneys to fail. Unfortunately, my kidneys were covered in scar tissue which made it impossible to know what caused them to fail. I started dialysis right away in the hospital and I continue to go to dialysis three days a week for 3.5 hours each day.

Dialysis takes up 3.5 hours of my life three days a week but some days are harder then others. There are days when I feel amazing after, I can go to work, I am able to go to the grocery store, clean the house, do fun things with my boyfriend. Then there are days where I feel completely terrible. I will go home and sleep for hours, wake up and still not want to do anything because I feel just as bad or worse then I did prior to sleeping.

On January 9, 2018 my cousin was generous enough to donate a kidney to me. I got the call on Halloween day of 2017. I was in Giant food shopping, I immediately started to cry, I was beyond excited and I just thought of all the thing I would be able to do again. At that point I didn’t know who my donor was, but I was so excited. I can’t even describe how excited I was that it was finally going to happen. But my new kidney was taken away only 12 hours later. I remember waking up after it was removed and the first thing I said out loud was it’s gone isn’t it.

The next few weeks were not the easiest, I was disappointed in myself, I felt like I had let everyone down. But I didn’t let it keep me down for long. I have been extremely positive about everything that has happened to me in the past three years. I always try to keep a smile on my face and a positive attitude, it makes it a lot easier to be positive.

I am currently looking for a living donor. Having a kidney from a living donor lasts longer and will work quicker once transplanted. It would also be a shorter wait time. I have been on the transplant list for 3 years, but the current wait time for my blood type is 5-8 years due to the growing demand for kidneys.

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