Can you help an old friend?

26 May 2017

I haven't spent much time with forge and Nicole since their wedding many, many years ago.  Forge was in mine back in '08, but weddings being what they are, I wasn't able to really hang out.  I think they lived in the Bay Area for a while, but now they're living in Maryland under what seems like less-than-optimal conditions..

Nicole recently announced that she's been suffering from polycistic kidney disease for much of her life; it is a disease in which cysts grow inside the kidney in the place of normal nephritic tissue.  If the cysts become too large or too numerous, the kidneys fail to function the way they're supposed to which causes a whole family of other health problems due to one's blood being filtered insufficiently.  If you have any doubts that this can be somewhat problematic, you might want to check out some medical photographs of the condition.  Unfortunately, while the condition can be treated to mitigate symptoms it cannot be cured entirely.  Nicole has lost 90% of her kidney function and she's going to need to go on dialysis within six months.

If you have it laying around, can you please spare a couple of dollars to help an old friend?  Also, if you can spread word of their Gofundme campaign around your respective social networks, can you please do so?  If you would like to sign up to see if you could be a possible kidney donor, please go here and fill out the forms: https://maryland.donorscreen.org/register/donate-kidney

Thank you.