By Sue Finley
Owner Ken Ramsey is in critical need of a donor kidney, and said he will not survive the eight-to-10-year wait on the transplant list, estimating he has about four months to live without it.
Ramsey said he currently has three options: “I either have to go on dialysis or die or get a kidney. I do not want to do the dialysis three days a week, four hours a day for the rest of my life.”
Ramsey has traveled to NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia Hospital in Manhattan, and is being treated at their Kidney Transplant Program. “I have to find my own donor,” said Ramsey. “The transplant list takes eight to 10 years. If I can find a live donor, they can do it for me in the next two weeks.”
Ramsey, 88, said that he needed to find a donor who has Blood Type O, does not have diabetes, and someone who, if they are on blood pressure medication, is only on one medication. Preferably, the donor would have health insurance. Ramsey is offering to fly the person and his or her spouse “or whoever they need” first class to New York, where they would stay two days in the hospital for the donation. Ramsey would put the family up in a hotel.
“My kidneys have taken a turn for the worse,” said Ramsey. “They are at eight-percent efficiency. That means they are only clearing out eight percent of the toxins you have in your kidneys, so that's 92% failure. I'm at a critical stage, so I came up here and they agreed that if I passed all the tests that I have now passed–a nuclear stress test on the treadmill for four hours–I'd be good to go. All I need now is a donor.”
Ramsey said that Columbia-Presbyterian guarantees donors a kidney immediately in the future if they do donate and then find themselves in need.
Ramsey didn't realize he had kidney disease until 2021.
“I had an old sea knee I was getting some injections in and the guy who was giving me the injections said to me, `Mr. Ramsey, you're in stage three kidney disease. Did you know that?' I said, 'No, I did not.' I immediately went to the Mayo Clinic and they gave me six things I needed to do to maintain my kidneys. I weighed about 198 pounds. I am now down to 160. I drink six bottles of water a day. I do my exercises, and reduced my stress level. I get eight hours of sleep a day. and most of all, I really worked on my diet. No or little potassium, no sodium, and no phosphorous.”
Ramsey said that anyone willing to consider the donation may register via Columbia's Donor Registration Website: https://cornell.donorscreen.org.
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