“Why I Advocate” (the Video)

The National Kidney Foundation asked us advocates to make a video on Why I Advocate. Now, for me, making a video sounded pretty daunting. The message part wasn’t the problem. I wrote that fairly quickly once I decided to keep it simple. Instead of focusing on living donation, I would just talk about chronic kidney disease awareness and how I came to donate my kidney to my son.

I’ve always thought I have two valuable simple points to add to this discussion. One is that, as you may already know, I’m a wimp. I’m hardly a brave, extroverted natural risk taker. I think that can resonate with a lot of people and maybe belies some myths about living donors.

The other is about my son, who doesn’t fit the image that most people have about those who suffer from chronic kidney disease. For starters, he was young, thin, and otherwise healthy when he developed it in college. A lot of people figure that if you don’t have a family history of kidney disease (we don’t), and you’re not obese or have diabetes or high blood pressure, it’s not something you need to think about. Wrong!

Watch my brief video to see why. (And yes, I even managed to make a video on my laptop!)