Newspaper Ad Rep Fighting Kidney Disease

Sue Byland has Stage Four polycystic kidney illness and desires a kidney donation. Photograph by Amanda Bridgman, Occasions-Union.

One in all our personal on the Occasions-Union wants your assist. Particularly, she wants one among your kidneys.

Many individuals could acknowledge Sue Byland from her work promoting advertisements for the Occasions-Union. She’s been right here for 3 years. She lately discovered she has Stage Four polycystic kidney illness. There are 5 levels, and she or he is extreme stage 4.

Polycystic kidney illness is an inherited dysfunction the place clusters of cysts develop primarily inside the kidneys, inflicting the kidneys to enlarge and lose operate over time. The cysts range in measurement, they usually can develop very massive, in line with the Mayo Clinic.

Byland, 64, lives in Warsaw and has two grownup youngsters and three grandchildren. Harm to her kidneys started when she was 6 months previous.

“I came upon about seven years in the past that my mother had polycystic kidney illness. It’s a hereditary illness brought about from irregular genes,” Byland stated. “A yr later after discovering out about my mother, I made a decision that I might get an ultrasound, and I examined optimistic for a similar illness.”

Byland has been seeing a nephrologist the final 5 years. She has struggled with hypertension, regardless of drugs, and 6 months in the past her physician put her on a brand new drug. Byland stated she was on that new drug for 2 months and it broken her kidneys additional as a substitute of doing any assist.

Byland has been instructed she wants to arrange for dialysis and join the donor’s checklist.

By tears, Byland stated she felt shock and worry when she was instructed she was extreme stage 4.

“I’m simply residing for my household. It’s laborious,” she stated.

Byland stated she realizes the donor course of is difficult and that the donor would have to be a tissue match.

“After I see different individuals receiving the present of life, it’s at all times introduced tears to my eyes to see that. I by no means thought that might occur to me,” she stated. “It’s unhealthy occasions, individuals are hurting, and I do know it’s actually lots to ask someone.”

Byland stated her physician instructed her the typical ready time for a donor match is 4 to 5 years, and if she will’t discover one, she’ll die.

March is Nationwide Kidney Month.

In accordance with statistics from donatelife.web, 112,00zero males, ladies and kids are ready for lifesaving organ transplants. Even the biggest soccer stadium in the USA couldn’t match the variety of sufferers on the nationwide transplant ready checklist, and one other individual is added to the checklist each 10 minutes. Yearly, 8,00zero individuals die in the USA as a result of organs are usually not donated in time, with 22 individuals dying every day for a similar purpose. Eighty-two p.c of sufferers ready are in want of a kidney.

Anybody who needs to see in the event that they’re a match for Byland can contact her at 574-526-1261.