Karol Franks ‏@okarol  May 24Pasadena, CA

Daughter Jenna is 30 yrs old & has been waiting 4 yrs for a #kidney transplant. To get tested as a possible donor please contact us at kidney4jenna@gmail.com

Thank you!

Relying on the kindness of strangers

How many health conditions rely on the kindness of strangers for help?
This is our daughter Jenna. She needs a type O kidney donor.
Please share. Thank you!

Jenna is on daily dialysis, needs a kidney donor!

If you're interested in being tested as a kidney donor for Jenna, please complete a form here: Living Donor Kidney Transplant Team at UCLA http://goo.gl/OEM2rP 
She needs a Type O donor, patient: Jenna Franks, born 11-21-85 -- thank you!

Living donors make miracles happen!!

Thank you to the over 133,000 living donors (since record keeping began in 1988) who gave of themselves to save another.

facebook.com/wantedkidneydonor

There are not enough kidneys to go around

Demand for kidney transplants is considerably higher than for any other organ. At the start of 2014, nearly 100,000 people in the United States were on the waiting list to have a kidney transplant. In recent years, only about 11,000 deceased-donor kidney transplants were performed annually in the United States. Each year another approximately 5,800 kidney transplants were made possible by living donors.

Save a life

Butterflies represent rebirth.
It's quite a life-changing experience when someone who has been sick receives the gift of life.
Celebrate Life: Be a Hero. Be an Organ Donor. Save a Life.

Just think about it.- A deceased donor can give kidneys, pancreas, liver, lungs, heart, intestinal organs, plus tissue and corneas- A living donor can give a kidney, or a portion of the liver, lung, intestine, or pancreas

One of the main jobs of the kidneys is to filter the waste out of the blood. The average person has 1 to 1½ gallons of blood circulating through their body. The kidneys filter that blood as many as 400 times a day! More than 1 million tiny filters inside the kidneys remove the waste.

5 Year Kidneyversary!

Here's Jenna with her sister and brother.
We celebrated Jenna's 5 years and the Brave Little Kidney with a pink kidney cake!Jenna had been on dialysis for over 3 years - had about 500 treatments. This transplant has given her freedom from needles and sitting, waiting for dialysis to end, only to begin again.
She doesn't know how long her transplant will last, but for today she's doing ok.
We'll always be grateful to her donor Patrice. Living donors make miracles happen!

Thanksgiving reminds me of what a joyful November we had 5 years ago, when Patrice, a stranger turned friend, offered to donate to Jenna. The surgery date was set for the following January, 2007. My heart is full of gratitude, knowing that a person could be so generous, so selfless, and willing to give our daughter a kidney. There's never enough ways to show or say thanks for what Patrice did. But I wanted to mention her - we are forever in awe of her loving gift.

And even though Jenna lost much of the kidney function through rejection, she has been stable nearly 2 years afterwards, Patrice's Brave Little Kidney still keeps running, steady and strong. We have a lot to be grateful for.

Jenna's 26th birthday - with her brother James

Our daughter got good news yesterday - she is now on the US national organ transplant list. She got a kidney transplant nearly 5 years ago and after a rejection episode 20 months ago, she's been stable at about 18% function. Her Brave Little Kidney keeps on truckin! This last month her function was the best it's been - we just marvel at that tough little bean!
The wait time in Los Angeles is now 10 years for a deceased donor kidney, so she hopes a living donor will be a possibility for her. Getting listed is the first step! It means she can look forward to the future.