Brianna Needs A Kidney

08/31/2023

This is so amazing! This doctor did a procedure where they put stem cells into reciepent from the donor AFTER they had their kidney transplant. It’s happened a few times before where they do both at the same time but never after. I teared up when the doctor read the report that the recipient accepted the organ as its own thanks to the donor stem cells. I wish the reciepent a long and healthy life OFF immunosuppressants! And thank you Dr. Jeffrey Veale and his team for working tirelessly towards this and hopefully paving the way so this is more common and people only need one transplant in their lives and without immunosuppressants!!

Organ transplant patients traditionally go through a grueling journey post operation, which involves a copious amount of medication for life. After years of ...

08/24/2023

Happy one year transplant-aversary to me!! Forever grateful for my beautiful donor Tyler. Thank you for your selfless gift of life. I made autonomically correct kidney cookies to celebrate and will frost them later and post a picture if they don’t turn out too ugly. There’s also another huge container of cookies so I made a lot. And thank you Roseline for helping me with the cookies!!! It only took like 2 hours to make them lmao

08/24/2022

After eleven and a half hours of surgery, Brianna Daniels has a new kidney that is filtering her blood!!!!! Her creatine is at 3.5 all the way down from 9 (normal is 1, it's going down slowly but surely!!) Crying tears of joy!!! So grateful for her anonymous live donor and all of your support!!!

08/04/2022

I can't believe I'm writing this. I have a kidney!!!!! A 40 year old man in Milwaukee decided to donate non directed and he happened to be a match to ME. Me with my 99% PRA!!!! My transplant coordinator called me at noon today and told me the exciting news and I've been crying ever since. The transplant is scheduled for August 23rd. My dad died on August 20th in 2008 and I think he had something to do with this match. I'm not religious at all but someone up there is looking out for me. No one thought I would get a match this soon. My transplant coordinator was even shocked that I found a match this quick. It's honestly a miracle. Everyone I've told today has either cried or gotten full body chills.

I have to go to U of M for pre transplant work up on the 15th and again on the 22nd. Then I'll be at the hospital at 5:30 am on the 23rd. I need to quarantine for 2 weeks beforehand. I was going to see John Mulaney on the 20th. My first show since covid. But I'll pass that for a KIDNEY!!!

To add to this, I had a potential donor (not a match but willing to do paired exchange) I've kept quiet about on social media since it wasn't for sure yet. They passed all the tests. They were just waiting till October due to personal reasons. They can still donate on my behalf and when I need another kidney when this one fails (which due to my age I'll probably need another kidney in my life time) I can use their voucher and get another living donor for my third transplant. I am so incredibly grateful for them and for social media because I met them through TWITTER!!! Thank you whoever created twitter. I literally owe you my life.

Thank you to everyone who shared my story, my posts, gotten tested for me, or donated to my gofundme. I appreciate it more than I can put into words.

The countdown begins!!!

07/17/2022

Hello everyone! I had my transplant evaluation at Mayo clinic on Thursday and Friday last week. My mom, brother, and I got there Wednesday to start early at 6am on Thursday. It took over an hour and four people to draw blood from me. They definitely aren’t the best in the world at drawing blood!

All of the doctors were amazing and really took the time to listen to me and answer any questions I had. Even though every single appointment was at least 20 minutes late! They told me I’m not a complicated case and that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that! They’re not worried about the transplant surgery at all and seemed very confident. They’re also not worried about my high PRA (antibody level). They said they do transplants on people with a high PRA like mine all the time. They said the key is to have a living donor set up. A living donor who is either a match to me or willing to do the paired exchange program for me. They said if I have a living donor, they can find me a match within MONTHS!!!! To get approved for Mayo I need to get some vaccines up to date, get a second covid booster, and get up to date appointments with dermatology and obgyn.

As far as the U of M goes, they’re looking at my CT scan of my stomach and pelvis and then approving me next week! Mayo doesn’t think it’s the best idea to get listed at multiple centers, because the centers I’m getting listed at are all in the same area for organ procurement. So I think I’ll just be listed at U of M and Mayo. And probably get my transplant done at Mayo if I have the choice. It really feels kinda like a waste of time to do all this for the U of M now.

So I really need a living donor in order to get a transplant in months vs many years. So please keep getting tested for me if this is something you want to do. Share my story as well. You never know if a stranger would be the one!

Here’s a link to start the health questionnaire for Mayo. If you filled it out for the U of M, please fill out the questionnaire for Mayo as well.

https://www.livingdonormc.org/

and here’s the link for my gofundme! If I get a transplant at Mayo, I’ll need to stick close by for a month and they have transplant housing but it’s 30 dollars a day. So that adds up quick. I appreciate all the donations so far. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-brianna-get-a-new-kidney

Love you all!!!

05/24/2022

I had my follow up with my urologist today! It will be four weeks post op on Thursday. Pending any other tests I need to do since it’s been a year ish, I AM CLEARED FOR TRANSPLANT!!!! I will be talking to my pre transplant coordinator this week to talk next steps for transplant. My urologist said he might assist with transplant to reconnect the ureter to the kidney. It depends on if the surgeon for transplant wants his help. I would appreciate that bc I love my urologist and trust him. I also apparently had a hernia that he fixed?? I think that was from my fallopian tube removal surgery. Yet another mess up my urologist had to fix!

Good times ahead!! Please continue to share the gofundme and donor screening. I’ll link both below. If I get my transplant at the u of m, I need to stay close by for a month I think. And I can stay w my aunt but I would need to pay for parking every day and that adds up. If I go to Mayo clinic they have transplant housing. But that’s 30 dollars a day. That adds up to like 900 dollars for a month. All and all it’s very expensive to be sick.

More updates to come after I talk to my pre transplant coordinator this week. 💚

https://linktr.ee/briannaneedsakidney

05/03/2022

Hello everyone! I had my urostomy surgery on Thursday. I started my bowel prep on Monday evening and didn't eat solid food starting Monday morning. It was a rough bowel prep. But we left Wednesday so we could be there the day before surgery. We got to the hospital at like 11:30. Dr. Elliott was eager to get started! I had a nerve pain block beforehand and that saved me a lot of pain.

It was supposed to be a 5 hours surgery. Because of all my scar tissue it was like a 9 hour surgery! I'm sure they were all ready to go home towards the end! I got our into recovery at like 9:30. My mom had to go home by then. I woke up with the tube still in my throat and remember croaking out the word "pain" so they could give me pain meds. They asked what my pain was and I said 9. And then the nurse tried to educate me on the pain scale like I was lying!! I just had surgery!! It's gonna be a nine!!!

I felt pretty good that night. I've been healing really good. My stoma looks perfect. My stoma wound nurse said if she had to show a picture of a perfect stoma she would show them a picture of mine! I changed my bag by myself already and it wasn't too difficult. Because I don't make urine, they just tied off the ureter so I can have just a cap on my stoma. I'll only get a bag when I start making urine again after transplant.

Everything went perfect and I'm healing real good. The best part?? I can go home TOMORROW!! I went into the surgery and everything thinking I would be in the hospital for 7-10 days! I'll be out in 6! This never happens! I made the right choice with this surgeon. I was nervous because of my previous experience with this hospital system but he did an absolutely perfect job.

Here's my gofundmelink because we've had to spend quite a bit of money on hotels and gas. So any bit would help! Thank you so so so much for anyone who donated anything so far.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-brianna-get-a-new-kidney

Next step TRANSPLANT!!!! But first let me heal a bit.

First thing- thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Second thing- I am … Jayelind Donnelly needs your support for Help Brianna Get a New Kidney

04/06/2022

Happy National Living Donor Day! Thank you to all the people who are real life heroes and save lives by deciding to be a living donor! Share your spare! And message me if you have any questions on living donation.

03/10/2022

Happy world kidney day!!! March is National Kidney Month and March 10th is World Kidney Day! Did you know that even with a kidney transplant, your kidney will still only function at abut 50%? Right now my kidney function is about 7%. That's why I need dialysis. Dialysis can only replace so much function and even with dialysis I still have less than 10% function. With all three of my kidneys! That's another fun fact: they don't remove your native kidneys when giving you someone else's kidney. They shrink when they're not being used so they're super tiny but I have three kidneys technically! My native kidneys and the transplant from when I was 17!

Usually, starts slowly and silently, and progresses over a number of years. Not everyone progresses from Stage 1 to Stage 5!
Read more about ➡️ https://www.worldkidneyday.org/facts/chronic-kidney-disease/

02/14/2022

Happy National Donor Day! Here's an article busting some myths about organ donation. Remember to sign the back of your ID saying you want to donate your organs after you die AND letting your family members know your wishes. When it comes down to it, your family gets the final say so you want to make sure your family knows that you would have wanted to donate your organs when possible.

Experts dispel five common organ donation myths — and explain why becoming a donor is a "selfless act."

02/11/2022

Hello! Long time no update! I haven’t really had an update until now. It’s been the same old same old.

When I was 5 I had a mitrofanoff created. A mitrofanoff is a stoma basically where you self cath out of. It’s created with your appendix. I would self cath every few hours. It’s painless and made it so I didn’t have to cath from below. Only a few people knew about this (until now) outside of my family. When I was 17, in order to have a transplant my bladder was augmented with part of my bowel. My pressures in my bladder were high and the idea of a bladder augment was to relieve these pressures and allow my bladder to hold more urine.

Back in December, I had a cystoscopy. A cystoscopy is where they measure bladder pressures. My bladder pressures were extremely high. A transplant would not thrive with those bladder pressures. My urologist gave me two options: he can redo the bladder augment and hope the pressures would improve or he can take out my augment and my mitrofanoff and bypass the bladder completely by creating a urostomy. A urostomy is where I have a stoma that empties directly into a bag on my stomach. So a colostomy but for urine. He said that he could “hit a home run” on the bladder augment redo and there would still be no guarantees that it would fix the bladder pressures.

So after talking with my mom and some of my family, I decided to do the urostomy. I’m not thrilled about it by any means. But this is what I have to do to get a transplant. I remember waking up from the cystro and my mom telling me that the urostomy is what he wanted to do and crying. It felt like yet another thing not going right for me. My body not functioning like it should yet again. But I’ve now accepted it. I trust this doctor more than I’ve ever trusted a medical professional. Idk what it is but I trust him with my life. So this is a good thing! He seems very optimistic about it. And it’s the LAST hurdle before urology will approve me for transplant.

My urostomy will be April 28th. I will be in the hospital for 7-10 days and it will be a recovery period of about 8 weeks. It could be sooner if I can go off pain meds before then.

So now I just wait until April.

12/16/2021

Hello! My lovely lovely friend Jaye Morgan set up a go fund me for my kidney expenses. I have to pay for parking when I go to the u of m fairview hospital, gas to get there, lodging, food, time off work (when I get another job) etc. I am in NO WAY expecting to meet this goal. I would be thrilled with 100 bucks! Anything helps. I am setting up a separate bank account just for this money. People ask how they can help and this is a way! Literally a buck or two goes a long way. Please share and I love you all 💚

First thing- thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Second thing- I am … Jayelind Donnelly needs your support for Help Brianna Get a New Kidney