My name is Wendy, and I am asking for your help to save my life.
I am a Registered Nurse with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Master of Science in Nursing. I worked 41 years, until 2025, when I had to retire early due to my health issues. For 34 of my 41 years as an RN, I was an operating room staff nurse and later held a management position there. For 7 years of my nursing career, I worked in the GI lab, assisting with colonoscopies and endoscopies. I loved working as an RN, and caring for patients undergoing surgery was my passion. I was extremely disappointed when I retired early because of my kidney failure.
Outside of nursing, I enjoy swimming laps, walking, biking, traveling, and spending time with my family. My family consists of my husband, daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter, and father. Since we have a very small family, we are all very close and get together as often as possible.
I have stage 5 kidney disease, and my kidney function is 6 %. I am currently on dialysis 4 days a week for 4 hours a day. This interferes with my activities that I previously enjoyed prior to being on dialysis. My husband and I bought a vacation condo in Florida in 2025. Three weeks after buying our condo, I found out that I needed a 2nd kidney transplant. I am not able to be at our condo and enjoy the activities we anticipated doing there when we retired. My only grandchild is 3 months old and lives about 2 hours from our home in Pennsylvania. I am unable to visit her for extended periods of time because of needing to return home so I can have my dialysis treatments. As I am waiting for a transplant, I wonder how long it will be before I get a call that there is a kidney available for me from a deceased donor. I always make sure I don’t miss a phone call informing me that a deceased kidney is available. Since I am on dialysis, it seems like the wait for a kidney could be a very long time. I am hoping that I find a living donor who will shorten my wait for a kidney transplant and that I will be able to enjoy a healthy life again soon.
I am looking forward to not needing dialysis anymore. After a transplant, I will be able to visit and babysit my 3-month-old granddaughter, who lives 2 hours away. Dialysis limits my ability to see my granddaughter and affects things I love to do. After my first kidney transplant, my husband and I were able to resume our love for traveling and returned to Hawaii for vacation, along with other favorite vacation places. I would love to start traveling again to my favorite vacation places and not need dialysis. Additionally, I would like to be able to babysit my only grandchild, who is 3 months old and lives about 2 hours away. Currently, my visits with her are shortened since I need to return home for dialysis. I would be forever thankful to a living donor for donating a kidney to me. This is a very kind, selfless act. My husband was my living donor for my first kidney transplant and is doing very well. Our surgeries were done robotically, and the recuperation was amazing. He was discharged the morning after surgery and returned to work in 5 weeks. Being an operating room nurse for 34 years, I have seen the progress that surgery has made since I started working in the OR in 1985. Robotic surgery has greatly improved patients’ recuperation time, incision size, length of hospital stay, and post-op discomfort.
