Living Kidney Donor Faq's

A picture of Susan with her mother Grace. Gracie put up a heroic fight for her life treated with dialysis until she passed away from Kidney disease. She was unfortunately disqualified from Kidney transplant due to health issues.

Now Susan has been stricken with the same terrible disease. She has been fighting it for about fifteen years now. On August 8th, 2021 we traveled from Sacramento to Mayo Clinic Phoenix for three days of testing for kidney transplant. We returned to Mayo a few weeks later for more testing and then some more testing in Sacramento. Susan was finally able to get on the kidney transplant list at the MAYO CLINIC ARIZONA in the middle of December, 2021.

In September, 2021, Susan and I took two weeks of Peritoneal dialysis classes and before that she had a peritoneal catheter surgically implanted in her peritoneal cavity (abdominal cavity.) This first catheter was not position quit right for her. When it came time to drain the dialysate, from her peritoneal cavity, the last part of the drain was causing excruciating pain. It was back to the operating room where she had to endure another two hour surgery to reposition the catheter. Thank God it is working well now.

Now she is working eight hours a day five days a week. After work she does five hours of peritoneal dialysis. She has to do the dialysis seven days a week. Most days she is very tired and doesn’t feel well. This is what she has to look forward to and must do to stay alive. KIDNEY DISEASE REALLY DOES SUCK!!

Dialysis is not a lifetime gig. It will not get you to old age. The best option is a good healthy kidney from a healthy living donor. This would get Susan ten to twenty years, or more, of an amazing life. A life that would give her time to watch her grandkids grow up and have families of their own.

I tried to be a living donor for my wife but the transplant center told me no because I have a health issue that disqualifies me. If you are considering being a living kidney donor, I can’t tell you what it would mean to her and our families if you considered donating your “Gift of Life” to my wife, Susan Goodman. Susan’s birthday is March 10th, 1960.