Reaching Out!

As you all know, at some point in Landon's life, he will need a kidney transplant. Our hope is that he can make it through high school without needing one but there are no guarantees.

Well, there is a 9 year old girl who lives only minutes away from us. This is so crazy considering that there are only about 500 people in the United States with this disease. Anyway, Dillon also has Cystinosis and was diagnosed around the age of 2. Well, the doctors have been concerned about some of her levels so have been keeping a close eye on them. They decided to test Dillon's parents to see if either of them are a match and can donate a kidney when the time comes. At first, they thought that Dillon's mom was a match and then recently learned that she is not. Dillon's dad is not a match either. One of the first things that we were told, in discussing the transplant process with the doctors, was the usually a parent is a match. Unfortunately, that is not the case in their situation. So, Dillon will soon begin dialysis until a match is found.

I cannot tell you much about the process at this point, but Jimmy and I talked before and will talk to Landon's nephrologist about determining if we are a match for Landon and if one, or both of us are not, then we want to get tested to see if we are a match for Dillon.

Dillon's family is reaching out to their community to see if people are willing to be tested. I, in turn, wanted to reach out to our incredible network. If you are interested in learning about the process and what it entails, please contact me at LaurenLHartz@gmail.com, Facebook or by phone and I can put you in touch with Dillon's parents. It is a big request but someone out there has what it will take to save a little girl's life.