NC Will “Soon” Have a Living Donor Protection Act!

It’s so close I can taste it.

I actually wrote much of this blog post in late June thinking it was days away, then put it aside thinking I’d wait till it was official that North Carolina would join the other 35 states that currently have living donor protections.

I decided not to wait because nearly three months later, it’s still not official–though it’s closer than it’s ever been.

NC Senate Bill 101 is currently in the Rules Committee of the State Senate just to approve the changes made to the bill by the House. It shouldn’t take long but…

We–donation advocates, donors and recipients alike–have been working to prohibit discrimination against living donors by insurance companies and to provide various job protections for several years. I personally have been in the fight since 2019.

Nearly six years ago, I first met with a NC state legislator (Rep. Willingham, center of photo) and several aides for other lawmakers at the General Assembly; five years ago I had coffee in district with a state legislator; four yeas ago I gave public comment; three years ago I attended a legislative breakfast with a few state legislators to give them a personal perspective on living donation. Throughout, I’ve made countless phone calls and written several blog posts to demonstrate support.

Each legislative session, we thought this would be the one, we’d finally make it–only to miss out at the last minute and we’d need to start from scratch in the next legislative session. Last year it was because a feud between state legislators had led one of them to block the bill.

And then, in June, to my shock and delight, I learned in a meeting that the General Assembly had just passed the bill. I couldn’t find anything online about it as it went through its final formal paces.

Then about a month later I learned that it was headed to the governor’s desk, awaiting his signature.

It wasn’t.

There’s one more hurdle: the Rules Committee, which is where it’s been sitting since late June.

So this week, along with other advocates, I called the bill’s primary sponsors to urge them to try to persuade the Rules Committee to bring it to a vote.

If you’re in North Carolina, please contact your state senator and ask them to do the same. Note that this bill has been approved by both the House and the Senate.

For living donors in the state, I’m happy to report that the bill goes a little further than the national version that’s been hiccuping through Congress since 2014. The NC version gives public employees two weeks of paid leave to donate. In addition to protections for living donors, the bill protects tax-advantaged accounts such as college tuition programs and ABLE accounts for individuals with disabilities.

Here’s hoping that the next post I write on this topic will be a clear-cut triumphant one.

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website and my articles at Medium.com/@caroloffen.

Paying Living Kidney Donors Could Save Thousands of Lives

I thought I was still on the fence about directly compensating living donors because though I agreed in principle–yes, tweaking a very broken system around the edges hasn’t been working–I still had some hesitations. Isn’t there a risk of it becoming a matter of poor people giving to middle and upper class patients?

But was I really on the fence? Significantly, I’d already signed the mission statement of the Coalition to Modify NOTA (that’s the 1984 law that says living donors can’t be compensated). I agreed with that critical first step. I’d also called my senators asking them to support the End Kidney Deaths Act.

It took a one-hour video interview by “Uncle Jim” Myers with Ned Brooks and Elaine Perlman, the prominent nondirected living donors behind this effort, to dispel my qualms. I’ve met them both at kidney-related events and know that they are knowledgeable, caring, and committed donation advocates. Listening to their well-articulated argument was all I needed.

Interestingly, it’s not that I really learned anything new in that hour. I was obviously predisposed, and they carefully pointed out facts I already knew and showed how those factors reinforce the rightness of the concept.

Surely, if you look at supply and demand, the numbers speak volumes: more than 90,000 people in this country are on waiting lists for a kidney from a deceased donor. Last year a total of about 27,000 kidney transplants (from both living and deceased donors) were performed. In the past 20 years, while the number of living donors has roughly stayed the same, the number of patients on the wait list has doubled. As a result, thousands die each year because they didn’t receive a kidney in time.

Also, tragically, about 12,000 kidney patients are removed from the list each year simply because they became too sick to undergo a transplant. Think of it: If they could have received the kidney sooner, they would have been able to benefit from a lifesaving transplant.

Clearly, the current system isn’t working. In addition to closing the huge gap between supply and demand, living donation is the gold standard for kidney transplants. It shortens an individual’s wait, it works quickly, and typically lasts far longer–on average twice as long as a kidney from a deceased donor.

Creating incentives for people to consider living donation could be a game changer. In the meantime, removing disincentives would seem to be a no-brainer, and that has been the noble goal for decades. Admittedly, there has been some slow progress, mainly in the form of expanding sources of financial assistance and getting closer to passing the Living Donor Protection Act, which prohibits discrimination by insurance companies.

It’s simply not been enough.

If you’re still hesitant to get behind this effort and call your member of Congress, here are a few more compelling points:

1-It would not be an unregulated system with the inherent risks of jeopardizing the health of donors and/or recipients.

The same safeguards that are built into the transplant process at all U.S. transplant centers now would remain in place. That means rigorous physical and psychological testing, including interviews with social workers, and psychologists.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

2-The financial incentives would not favor the wealthy over the very poor, who arguably wouldn’t benefit from tax credits. The government would be providing $50,000 (at $10,000 a year for 5 years) in the form of “refundable tax credits,” the type used now to encourage certain types of behavior, such as home-ownership or use of electric vehicles.

People whose income is too low to pay taxes would instead be given a check for $10,000/year.

3-The increased number of donated organs actually would be more likely to benefit lower socioeconomic groups. A disproportionately large chunk of those 90,000 people on the wait lists are minorities and lower-income individuals, who have higher rates of kidney disease. These patients are less likely to have a living donor: their family members often have similar or related health issues that could prevent them from being donors. And healthy friends and family members who might be candidates are more likely to face lost wages or unsupportive work situations.

As a result, the percentage of black kidney transplant recipients who have a living donor is less than half that of white kidney recipients.

4–It won’t cost the healthcare system money–it will actually save tax dollars. Transplants cost the system less than dialysis (at roughly $90,000/year) to begin with. Every patient who stops or avoids dialysis because of a transplant saves Medicare money. So, it not only saves lives–it saves dollars.

Note that the tax credits would go only to nondirected (unspecified) donors, so family members of patients, who would be more likely to consider donating to a loved one anyway, would not be eligible. Down the road, supporters hope to expand the compensation to all living donors.

[For an expanded version of this post (directed particularly to people with less knowledge of kidney donation and kidney disease), see my story in Wise and Well on Medium.com.]

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

A Very Productive Day on Capitol Hill

I just figured out that I’ve now participated in more than thirty advocacy (aka lobbying) meetings for the kidney community, mostly at the federal level. My recent meetings in DC for the National Kidney Foundation’s Kidney Patient Summit definitely stand out. I thought I’d share some observations.

At their worst–perish the thought!–such meetings risk being dry, one-sided recitations of our “asks” (often cosponsoring legislation, signing on to a letter, voting to increase research funding) while a well-meaning but harried staffer listens quietly, taking notes, followed by our rushed awkward efforts to “tell our stories” before the staffer, obviously distracted by more pressing obligations, moves to end the meeting early.

Fortunately, the only ones I’ve ever had that were close to that scenario occurred years ago on Zoom, because of COVID, often without video. (I kept hoping that the disembodied voice was more engaged than it sounded and wishing desperately for a little eye contact to have a better idea if our message was “getting through.”)

At their best, though, such as one our North Carolina team had recently with a seasoned Senate staffer, Garrett Daniel (Senator Thom Tillis’s legislative assistant), they can be exhilarating. Here are a few illustrations.

Instead of being one sided, they’re natural interactive conversations that happily go off script. I’d been in several excellent Zoom meetings with Garrett since 2020, but this was our first in-person meeting. He’s always engaged, well informed, and often alludes to other ideas in the senator’s pipeline–such as a plan for a framework for paid leave for caregivers–that dovetail with our efforts.

LA Garrett Daniel, standing next to name plaque, with our NC team this year (left to right: Alan Levy, me, Wendy Glod, Dre Roundtree, kneeling, and his wife, Necole Roundtree.

We all participated in the lively discussion, often, in response to his questions, mentioning additional aspects of our asks that we hadn’t touched on in our elevator pitch. After hearing comments from a kidney transplant recipient’s wife, Garrett was the one to raise the subject of the burden on the caregiver not just in the home but in terms of job issues.

He listened to our personal stories and then often gently asked questions to get a clearer picture of what our experiences entailed. In fact, when he prompted one of our team members to elaborate on her long journey to get a kidney transplant, she shared important and wrenching details that the rest of us hadn’t heard.

Because her insurance company would only cover her numerous appointments for essential tests if she went to a center three hours each way from her home in Charlotte–instead of one just fifteen minutes away–she had to wait more than two years before she could move ahead with the transplant she desperately needed. Then, after she went through all her testing and was just one test away from being listed for a transplant, she got a peritonitis infection–so the transplant was further delayed.

At the end of the meeting, in addition to concern, Garrett also offered critical pragmatic support. For example, Senator Tillis is already a cosponsor of the Living Donor Protection Act, so our ask in his case was to help us get a committee hearing for the bill. Garrett’s boss is not on one of the committees in question, so Garrett offered to reach out to his counterparts in the office of NC Senator Budd (who is) to bolster our efforts. He planned to do the same with other offices regarding another bill the kidney community is supporting, to help expand access to home dialysis.

It was late afternoon when we left the office, and in between meetings we’d been walking up and down long, imposing corridors and all over Capitol Hill for hours. Our feet hurt. But after meetings like this, everyone on our team left feeling energized.

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

ASKing Congress–for a “Friend”

My bags are packed, and I’m ready to approach federal legislators and/or their staffers again along with other advocates from the National Kidney Foundation. As usual, we have very important asks.

If you’ve read even a few of my posts since I launched this site in 2019, you know that I’ve been lobbying for the Living Donor Protection Act–both on Capitol Hill and in my state, North Carolina–for several years. So, yes, our number-one ask is for this session of Congress to finally move ahead with this bipartisan (yes!), noncontroversial, bare-bones legislation that’s been kicking around Congress since 2014.

This bill to prohibit discrimination by insurers against living donors–through higher premiums or coverage refusal–gets reintroduced every session. There may be a new sponsor, if one of the originals is no longer in office, more cosponsors…and then it sits. It’s yet to have a committee hearing, much less a vote. This shouldn’t be so hard.

The second ask is a newer one that could benefit so many people currently on dialysis. The majority (about 85%) of dialysis patients receive hemodialysis at a center, where they go three times a week for three to four hour sessions. Not everyone lives near a center and may need to travel more than an hour by car or city bus(es) to get there. We want Congress to improve access to home dialysis for patients who choose to do it, by providing funds for training and professionals to actually go to people’s homes in the first few months to help them learn how. It could be a game changer by enabling someone to do dialysis on their own schedule and even facilitate their being able to fit sessions around their work hours.

The third ask is about modernizing and improving the national transplant system that allocates deceased organs. Nearly 100,000 people are on national waiting lists (most of them for a kidney), and most wait several years. The system is extraordinarily complex and there are appalling instances of wasted organs. Most everyone agrees it needs to be more efficient and transparent, so more people can get a transplant after a shorter wait. Congress passed an act to modernize and improve the system last year. What we need now is for lawmakers to provide the necessary $100 million funding to carry it out.

The fourth ask, and in the long run arguably the one with the most lasting potential benefit, concerns early screening for kidney disease. My symbolic “friend” in the kidney community probably isn’t even aware of being among the estimated 37 million Americans with chronic kidney disease. Yup, 90% of that population haven’t even been diagnosed yet and don’t know that their kidneys are gradually–sometimes not so gradually–losing function.

Confused? Let me clarify the difference between chronic kidney disease and kidney failure. Diseased kidneys slowly lose function over years–even decades–before they reach kidney failure, during which time there may well be no obvious symptoms. Once they fail, though, the only way to save someone’s life is with a transplant, or, in the meantime, dialysis. People with diabetes and/or high blood pressure are at the highest risk of developing kidney disease. So if doctors routinely screened these patients for kidney disease (with a simple blood test), millions of lives could be saved.

With early detection, not only can that disease progression be slowed, it can often even be reversed, through behavioral changes–exercise, healthy diet, hydration–and medication. We’re asking members of Congress to sign a letter in support of official guidelines for screening.

These are pretty straightforward noncontroversial asks. I’ll let you know how it goes.

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

UPDATE: How States Rank in Living-Donor Protections

Last year about this time I published a post about living donation-related protections and benefits, by state. As I mentioned then, while awaiting passage of a federal Living Donor Protection Act, more than half of states have enacted their own version (it’s now 31). In fact, like the one we’ve been supporting in North Carolina, some state bills are actually are more generous than the federal version (by including paid leave for state employees who donate).

United States Map With State Names Pdf Valid Printable Map Of | Printable Map Of The United States Pdf – Printable US Maps

But the LDPA is just one way that states can encourage living donation. Financial supports and job protections are other critical ones. I decided to check on the status of those efforts and the resources I provided last year–to include updates and new links as needed.

Are you considering being a living donor, or have you donated recently? Do you know what the relevant tax provisions and protections are in your state–or in a state you may be looking at? It’s worth doing your homework.

The National Kidney Foundation has a terrific resource in a map you can click on to find out what donation-related laws and protections a particular state offers. Does it have a Living Donor Protection Act, or similar insurance-discrimination protections? Does it also have job-protected living donor leave for private employees? How about for state employees? What about paid leave? What about tax deductions? Even better, what about tax credits?

The American Kidney Fund website also features an invaluable resource: a state report card. It rates each state based on important donation-related measures and provides an overall rating on how well that state encourages living donation and removes barriers. Though I’m happy to report there has been some progress in the past year, it’s not nearly enough. Not surprisingly, only a few states still merit an A: Arkansas, Connecticut, and Louisiana. Glad to see that 16 now get Bs, and 14 (plus Washington, DC) have Cs, but several get Ds (including, alas, North Carolina).

Unfortunately, seven states rate an F–that is, these states failed miserably because they have no donation-related measures in place: Alabama, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Vermont. Earlier this year Nevada and Wyoming passed anti-insurance discrimination laws, moving them up to a D; Rhode Island just passed its version in late June, moving it up to a C. That brings the national average grade to a C, up from D when AKF began the report card system in 2021.

The irony–and real tragedy–is that none of these donation measures is really controversial–they shouldn’t be so damn hard to pull off. They are simple, reasonable, common-sense ways that a state can demonstrate its support for people who help save a life in this way. In fact, not only does encouraging living donation save lives, for kidney patients it reduces costs by reducing the number of people on dialysis (Medicare pays about $90,000 a year per dialysis patient).

With 103,600 people in this country on the national transplant waiting list (about 4 out of 5 needing a kidney), it seems that the very least we can do is remove the barriers to living donation.

For related posts, resources, and information on The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

Good News and Bad News

If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to read the bad news first. (I’ve never understood why anyone would want to hear good news first, feel terrific, only to then be brought back down and left with sad or depressing news.)

Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com

So, first the bad news:

The Living Donor Protection Act, which was first introduced in 2014, still hasn’t crossed the finish line on its way to becoming law. It would provide basic protections against discrimination by insurance companies, as well as job protections for taking time off work to donate. Remember the latest big push during the meetings with lawmakers we had in the fall? We were SO close to finally getting this thing passed. I’m not sure if it’s still technically possible, but it’s as good as impossible. That means we start all over in the next session of Congress. We”ll also need a new House sponsor because Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler wasn’t reelected.

Now the good news!

Even though it didn’t make it into law, the LDPA had the most cosponsors ever: 158 in the House and 43 in the Senate. That has to translate into increased bipartisan support in the next Congress. In other words, we shouldn’t need to start from scratch. They all know about the act now, and, given that nearly 100,000 people in this country are waiting for a lifesaving kidney, most lawmakers understand its importance.

$$$ for Kidney Disease Awareness and More: Congress just released its final appropriations bill that includes substantial increases in funding for federal programs that promote kidney disease awareness, education, and research. Sure, we need more living donors and must remove obstacles to donation, and yes we need an implantable artificial kidney, but ultimately the best way to meet the critical need for kidneys and save lives by reducing kidney failure, is to PREVENT chronic kidney disease in the first place. So, education and research are absolutely essential.

The Immuno Drug Bill (aka Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for Kidney Transplant Patients Act), which finally passed at the end of 2020, goes into effect very soon: January 1, 2023. Believe it or not, this one had been kicking around way longer than the LDPA: 20 years! The kidney community has been fighting to change the law that arbitrarily cuts off Medicare coverage for transplant recipients who don’t otherwise qualify for it–for example, those under 65– after 36 months post transplant. The Immuno bill now ensures that people with no other health plan to pay for their critical antirejection meds will be able to have these drugs covered for the life of the transplant.

Eligible individuals can start applying for the Medicare immuno drug coverage right now. If you have questions, contact the toll-free help line at 855.NKF.CARES (855.653.2273) or nkfcares@kidney.org .

For related posts, resources, and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation,

please be sure to explore the rest of my website.

Still Advocating After All These Years

Last week I had a day of back-to-back virtual meetings with congressional staffers–plus one congressman!–to talk about the Living Donor Protection Act and kidney health in general. Hard for me to believe that this was my fifth such event. Unlike most of the others I’ve been a part of, this one represented a partnership of 22 kidney-health organizations–including the National Kidney Foundation, of course–led by the American Society of Nephrology.

The good news: The LDPA is closer to being passed than at any time since it was first introduced in 2014.

The bad news: With Congress adjourning soon, if it doesn’t make it across the finish line now, we’ll have to start all over in the next session of Congress. (That thought is not only depressing but overwhelming because of logistical issues that I’ll save for another post.) Consequently, our “ask” was not just for cosponsorship of the bill by those members who hadn’t yet signed on but for help from all of them to get the bill to the floor.

As I related here after one such day of meetings, I’ve come to understand what the trainers have told us repeatedly: it’s the personal stories that will stay with and move a staffer or member of Congress. They’ve had a gazillion meetings and heard all the appalling numbers before: that nearly 100,000 Americans are waiting for a kidney and at least 13 die every day because they didn’t get one in time. They know all that on an intellectual level. It’s not the same as hearing what it means for a mother to see her son grow more and more listless and depressed as he struggles through long months of dialysis.

I was joined by an impressive group of fellow advocates who represented an interesting range of perspectives: Brenda Johnson, from the Veterans Transplantation Association, who told of veterans struggling with kidney failure or having to fight with insurance companies to get life insurance if they donate; Lauren Drew, NKF’s very savvy governmental affairs director, who’s been my mentor for such meetings since I first became a Kidney Advocacy Committee member; Dr. Hostensia Beng, a pediatric nephrologist, who shared heartbreaking stories of parents trying desperately to find a kidney donor for their young child; and Dr. Gentzon Hall, a nephrologist/genetics researcher at Duke Medical Center (just down the road from me), whom I’d met last year when we were on the same advocacy team. He emphasized the dire need for more research funding.

The highlight of the day had to be our meeting with Rep. Gregory Murphy, a former transplant surgeon. He knows firsthand how transplant transforms lives, and he promised not only to cosponsor the Living Donor Protection Act but to do all he could to help move it across the finish line before Congress adjourns.

It’s soo close. C’mon, LDPA!

For related posts and information on my new book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

Protecting Living Donors from Discrimination

This week I met with North Carolina Rep. Verla Insko, my state legislator, and Katey Cipriani, the National Kidney Foundation’s regional community outreach director. The topic was living donation, of course. We were seeking Rep. Insko’s support for a Living Donor Protection Act in our state, as we had with other legislators just a few months ago at the legislature. The General Assembly is between sessions now, so this meeting was more informal, a pleasant chat in a quiet local coffee house in Chapel Hill. I was there to share my story of donating to my son and offer some personal insights into why we need to protect living donors from discrimination.

Katey (far right) and I (far left) with fellow donor Dolores McGrath and Young Bae, Rep. Insko’s legislative assistant, who set up our meeting with Rep. Insko.

So why might donors ever be discriminated against for saving a life? Let me give you an example. To be approved as a living donor, I had to pass numerous tests that looked at my heart, lung, kidney, general fitness, myriad blood tests… Thirteen and a half years post donation, my kidney function is fine and I’m still in excellent health at 71. I’m active, enjoy Zumba a few times a week, and walk regularly. Nothing remarkable there, but I have donor friends in their 50s and 60s who run marathons. And yet…

If we apply for a life insurance policy tomorrow, there’s a chance an insurer could either deny coverage or up the premiums. Some cap coverage much lower than requested. Doesn’t make sense, does it–not to mention that it’s morally indefensible? It doesn’t happen often, but a study found that about one in four living donors had experienced some type of insurance discrimination–mainly due to misinformation about the negligible impact of living with one kidney. Did you know that many healthy people were born with one kidney? Donors do lose some kidney function, but the other kidney gets plumper and takes on part of the job of the “missing” one. As a result, donors have sufficient function to live normal productive lives.

Among other things, a state Living Donor Protection Act would prohibit insurance companies from denying or limiting coverage–or charging higher premiums–for life, disability, or long-term care insurance for living donors. The proposed federal LDPA, which has been reintroduced in Congress and has dozens of sponsors, would also address job protections and a few other issues that can be disincentives to donation. With nearly 100,000 people waiting for a kidney from a deceased donor, removing those disincentives is critical.

Most people don’t realize how widespread chronic kidney disease is–it’s more common than breast cancer or prostate cancer. As I told Rep. Insko, I really think most people are no more than two degrees of separation from someone who’s had or needs a kidney transplant: a friend of a friend, a neighbor’s cousin, a PTA member’s spouse…

Rep. Insko listened attentively and asked how other states have approached the task of protecting living donors: How many have relevant laws (11, but several more are in process)? Which one do we want to model North Carolina’s on? Did those states encounter any pushback? What concessions did they have to make to get it passed?

She also had several helpful suggestions of people in the General Assembly to approach, including those who had some ties to health care. She promised to take a close look at the related materials Katey had brought and was interested in learning more. As it turns out, we have time–most new legislation can’t be introduced until the 2021 session of the General Assembly.

I’m learning that advancing legislation is a slow, stop ‘n start process. But we’re making progress, gathering support, and picking up some tips along the way.

Bonding with State Legislators

The idea of meeting with state legislators to push for protections for living donors sounded a bit intimidating at first. I’d often emailed legislators and committee members, of course, and called my members of Congress about a national Living Donor Protection Act, but in-person meetings were a whole new ballgame. That’s what advocates do, though, right? So I took a deep breath and started calling representatives to whom I’d emailed information about a Living Donor Protection Act for North Carolina.

I called. And I called again. And then, amazingly, one by one, I started connecting with their warm and helpful legislative assistants, one of whom thought I was “awesome” for donating my kidney to my son 13 years ago. Little by little, I managed to set up meetings. I’d be joined by Dolores McGrath, a fellow living donor/NKF Kidney Advocacy Committee member, and Katey Cipriani of NKF Carolinas. It was starting to feel like a semi-official delegation.

For my first effort, I’m happy to report a reasonable success. The people we met were so pleasant and receptive to our “pitch” that the experience reminded me a bit of selling Girl Scout cookies when my daughter was a kid. Hardly a tough sell. Not really surprisingly, nearly everyone we spoke to had some direct or indirect connection to the topic.

After meeting with Rep. Willingham, we posed for a group photo. Left to right: Joe and Dolores McGrath, Rep. Willingham, me (dwarfed by everyone else!), and Katey Cipriani from NKF.

My representative, Verla Insko, wasn’t in town but we met her legislative assistant, whose brother is a nephrologist; he’s long been hearing stories of the critical need for public education about kidney disease. Another shared that the tragic death of a young woman she knew had saved several lives. Both she and her boss are ardent supporters of organ donation in general. Another has a mother with kidney disease–we compared notes about a beloved nephrologist my son saw years ago.

Rep. Shelly Willingham, who was at the legislature this week and was kind enough to give us a half-hour out of his busy day, said diabetes runs in his family. Fortunately, his diabetes is well controlled now, without needing to take insulin shots, because he “did everything the doctors told me to do.” Most people probably don’t know that that’s possible (I know I didn’t!). Diabetes and high blood pressure together account for three-quarters of the cases of chronic kidney disease, so when people with diabetes follow doctor’s orders, they’re also helping to prevent kidney disease.

We were joined by Dolores’s husband, her recipient, who also has diabetes. His kidney disease went undiagnosed for a long time, and by the time it was discovered, his kidneys were failing and he had to start dialysis. They both shared what a toll his years on dialysis had taken.

Although Rep. Verla Insko wasn’t in Raleigh, we met with Young Bae, her legislative assistant.

We were also glad to meet Margaret Martin, Rep. Michael Wray’s research assistant, and Pam Pate (not shown), Rep. Phillip Shepard’s legislative assistant.

Exchanging personal stories of health struggles and triumphs not only helps to raise awareness, it also creates bonds. We left feeling that we had made a true connection and sincerely believe we have the representative’s support. He plans to reach out to another legislator in a bipartisan bid to protect living donors in our state. We’ll be going back to the General Assembly when it reconvenes in January and are optimistic that we can make some real progress. (Still, I’d love to have a bite of Thin Mints now…)