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"I was born with a disease called Nephropathic Cystinosis. It is very rare; there are less than 500 known cases in the United States. I was diagnosed when I was only 22 months old, and my parents were told that I would not be able to live past age 10 without a transplant. My kidneys gradually failed. When I was 16 I started dialysis. I was on dialysis for 22 months, until a month after my 18th birthday when I was called and told that a kidney that matched was available for me." In August 1999, Jessica Britt entered Packard Children's Hospital in Northern California to prepare for her kidney transplant. "When the kidney is from a living, rather than a cadaveric donor, patient and graft survival can be almost 20% better," explains Dr. David Landsberg, advisor to the CORR. "This is due to shorter waiting times for patients, improved white blood cell antigen matching and greater oxygen content in the organ tissues. This is not to say that cadaveric donors are not needed, they are. Kidney transplant recipients, regardless of donor type, generally fare much better than long-term dialysis users." |
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| Anne | Britney | James | Jessica | Linda | Matthew | Ralph |
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