Help Tom pay for kidney transplant expenses

HI,

My name is Maryann and I'm fundraising for Tom.

 

“My son has what?” The Doctor replied, “Chronic Kidney Disease.” “Oh no,” I thought as my heart sank. As a nurse practitioner, I knew we had a long and difficult road ahead of us. How could this happen to my son, a 28 year old with no former health problems? Why Tom?

 

Prior to this, Tom was living what seemed to be his ideal life. A Massachusetts native, he had wanted to see more of the world after graduating with a bachelors degree in psychology from Umass Lowell. He traveled extensively, moved to Colorado, and then eventually found his way to Austin, Texas. He had a good job, friends, and he seemed like he was really enjoying his life. But around the time that COVID had first started spreading, Tom started experiencing symptoms such as intense headaches, a racing heart, and sleeplessness. Not knowing what was wrong or how to handle the situation, and not getting any relief, Tom decided he would fly home to Mass. It was then that I measured his blood pressure at 240/120. He was immediately brought to the hospital and tested. The next day, we would find out that Tom’s kidneys were failing.

 

At first, things were manageable. Tom moved back home to our house in Andover, Massahusetts, and started working as a real estate agent in Somerville. However, over time, the fatigue started getting to him. The commute, the constant increases in blood pressure meds, the nightly nine hours of peritoneal dialysis and the toxins building up in his body were causing him extreme exhaustion and nausea. It got to the point that he was hardly able to stay awake at the wheel anymore, and he was vomiting multiple times a day, every day, for over a month straight. After several months of trudging through, Tom had finally had enough. He couldn’t safely continue to work any longer, so he stopped working. About a week later, he wound up in the hospital for having dangerously low hemoglobin levels. The next six days would be full of blood transfusions that were ultimately able to restore him to reasonable levels. Though it was now clear that Tom had now lost all kidney function.

 

This journey has been difficult. Tom has had countless hospital visits and surgeries. He has had a kidney biopsy, two catheter implant surgeries, a catheter removal surgery, a shunt placement surgery, multiple blood transfusions, and countless tests and examinations. On top of everything, Tom goes to a dialysis center – three times a week, four hours a session. I have to drive him because he is so exhausted from the seven blood pressure medications he takes every day.

 

All the while, the financial burden has been mounting up. Tom’s expenses just for his medical insurance are upwards of $500 a month. Not to mention all the hospital fees. And now, because the waitlist in Massachusetts is 5 -8 years or more for a kidney, we have since moved to the midwest as he is on the waitlist there (the waitlist is much shorter). So now we incur hotel costs of $2500 a month, plus food and other expenses which are adding up quickly. WIth the uncertainty of the timeline of all of this, we know expenses are just going to keep piling up. That’s why we started this campaign. Would you please consider donating to our fund? Any amount would help!

Thank you and God Bless!