By writer to spectrumlocalnews.com
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — All Elena DePaolo desires is her regular life again. However for the previous 5 years, she’s been going through well being hurdles. She was recognized with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
“Normally little children get that,” Elena stated. “So for me to have it, they knew I wanted a stem cell transplant. I had some bizarre chromosomes too, so it mainly would have stored coming again.”
Elena’s battle with most cancers lasted six months, by which she went via a stem cell transplant and went via six rounds of chemotherapy and 6 rounds of radiation.
“Six months doesn’t seem to be a very long time, however it’s whenever you’re the one going via it,” Elena stated.
The most cancers went into remission and she or he thought that was the top of her wrestle, however it solely simply started. She says the cruel therapy for the most cancers demolished her kidneys.
“We’re strolling out of 1 factor and into the opposite,” Elena stated. “As a result of all I stored speaking about throughout most cancers was how I needed my normalcy again. And I simply don’t really feel like I acquired my normalcy again.”
Elena was recognized with power kidney illness, her kidneys presently had been performing at 40% in stage three of the illness. Throughout this time, Elena and her husband determined they needed to start out a household. Elena grew to become pregnant twice via IVF; the primary fetus didn’t have a heartbeat and the second was born at 20 weeks and didn’t survive. She came upon quickly after that that her illness had moved into stage 4, her kidneys performing at 17%.
“Not solely did I lose my daughter,” Elena stated. “However now my kidneys had been on the verge of failing.”
A yr and a half in the past, a lightweight got here into the DePaolo’s life via this darkness. They adopted Lorenzo within the hospital after he was born.
“He’s saved me on extra events than I’d most likely prefer to admit,” she stated. “I simply love that boy.”
However Elena’s kidney operate is lowering and she or he is worried. She now wants a kidney transplant. There was hope: a potential match was present in September and the transplant that might give Elena a brand new kidney was imagined to occur in early November. Then she obtained the heartbreaking information that the individual wasn’t really a match. Now she’s searching for a brand new donor so she may be there for her son.
“I adopted my son to be his mom,” Elena stated. “And that’s the entire approach, not simply a part of the way in which. And I’ve to be right here for my husband.”
Her kidneys are at present performing at about 15%, and she or he’s flirting with dialysis. She says she would fairly have a transplant than go on dialysis, as dialysis simply prolongs the illness.
“Nothing works higher than an precise kidney,” she stated.
Blood varieties O optimistic or adverse and A positve or adverse are appropriate with Elena. In case you are focused on donating, you possibly can contact ECMC at 716-898-5001.
