Michelle's Kidney Expenses

Hey NATCA family,

When my wife, Michelle, was 16, she was diagnosed with a kidney disease named IGA Nephropathy. IGAN is basically a kidney disease that degenerates your kidneys over time. When we were living in Hawaii and working at HCF, she started to go down hill and we made the hard choice to hardship to RDU. When she got here, she was able to maintain her current kidney function for a few years. Her disease even went dormant. Unfortunately, the damage to her kidneys was too much and eventually they started to fail (imagine only having one leg, that leg would eventually get tired). A few months ago, she reached stage 5 kidney failure (the stage where they fail). A transplant team was formed and we started the long process of getting put on the national kidney donor list. Her transplant team said that it is time to start asking around to friends and family and coworkers and strangers to find out if anyone is willing to donate her a kidney. A kidney from a living donor would possibly add 30 years to her life as opposed to a kidney from a deceased donor which could be less than half of that. Additionally, kidneys in Michelle’s blood type average around a 7 year wait time. Her kidneys filtered at a 16% rate in April 2021 then 12% in December and has continued to decline. So the clock was ticking.

I put out a post in our open-forum channel of slack at RDU. We had 2 coworkers willing to donate, go through the process, and match with Michelle. I am ecstatic to tell you that she is getting a kidney transplant on June 16! I have learned that NATCA is one big family who takes care of one another and our contract looks out for us. Did you know that under Article 29, the Agency shall provide us with 30 days of excused absence to serve as an organ donor? If you’ve ever wanted to literally donate life in the form of an organ, the NATCA contract gives you the time to do it!

As for Michelle and me, our journey isn’t over. We still have a long road ahead of us post transplant. There will be countless expenses, doctor visits, missed work, and LWOP in our future. You can help by donating an organ, donating time, donating money, or purchasing a shirt. We are forever grateful to our NATCA family for all that you have given us.

Andrew Motley
ATCS RDU