Introduction

To begin, I married this wonderful man who has spent his life pushing through an overabundance of medical hardships.

This story is to tell you how I became his living kidney donor, and just how we did it!

Jeff Gammons is his name, and he is my whole world. You’ll see.

As it was confirmed to us quite recently, the cancer he suffered as a baby and the treatments that were used, was the initial cause of the slow deterioration of both his kidneys.

Jeff was subjected to almost 5 years of dialysis treatments. This process filters all the blood in your body and removes harmful substances before returning the clean blood back into your system. In 2005, he had a surgical procedure for an AV fistula, which is used as the hemodialysis access point. It was used until April of 2009, when he was called to Jackson Memorial Hospital for his first kidney transplant, on Easter Sunday.

It was not an easy lifestyle, but I will let you hear that story from him.

I came into his life when he was fairly healthy and stable after that transplant. But as we got closer, he made it clear to me that having another transplant would be a necessary event in his future, because cadaver-donor kidneys traditionally only last 13-15 years.

As time would show us, that timeline was extremely accurate. ~ Sara Gammons