Garrett Ramos is a 19 year old student with IgA Nephropathy. Check the links on the right, or if you’re mobile scroll down, for more info on what that is. In a nutshell, he was diagnosed about five years ago with this immune disorder and he is now in kidney failure. He spends about 15 hours a day–after attending morning classes at Ohlone College in Fremont–on Perineal dialysis which involved pumping stuff through his stomach. Not ideal.
There’s a lot of fatigue, vomiting, nausea and a host of complications that arise from time to time, relating to the condition, the handfuls of medications he takes each morning and night, and the equipment he’s tethered to for most of every day.
While Garrett can live on dialysis for many more years, it’s not anyone’s best choice for quality of life.
But Garrett may be on the verge of a transplant. There is a donor who is a match. While we’ve been down this road before, and have had our disappointments, we are hopeful this time that there will be no medical surprises with the donor, and nothing else to get in the way. If everything is a go, we’ll be sharing updates here all along the way.
Fingers crossed, prayers and good thoughts. Whatever you’ve got, we’ll take ’em.
garrett updates 