Georgia woman, 20, searching for new match after COVID-19 destroyed mom’s donated kidney

LaGRANGE, Ga. — 5 years after a donated kidney gave Alia Brown a brand new lease on life, the 20-year-old Georgia girl has discovered herself again on the transplant record, because of COVID-19.

Brown, who was identified with lupus on the age of 9, was gifted a kidney in 2017, three years after certainly one of her kidneys started failing utterly, forcing the younger girl to endure dialysis 3 times every week, WBRL reported.

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Lupus is an autoimmune illness that may overwhelm a affected person’s joints, pores and skin, kidneys, blood cells, coronary heart, lungs and mind with irritation, in accordance with the Mayo Clinic.

Luckily for Brown, her mom was a match and donated certainly one of her personal kidneys to her ailing daughter in 2017. In August 2020, nonetheless, Brown contracted COVID-19, and her mom’s donated kidney additionally failed throughout the one-month hospitalization.

“I used to be so upset as a result of I used to be comfortable that I used to be in faculty. I used to be free. I used to be capable of be impartial and, yeah, it was kinda like a letdown. It was an enormous letdown,” Brown informed WRBL.

Kidney well being knowledgeable Dr. C. John Sperati, director of Johns Hopkins College’s Nephrology Fellowship Coaching Program and an affiliate professor of medication, wrote in early March that research for the reason that onset of the pandemic have decided that greater than 30% of sufferers hospitalized with COVID-19 develop kidney damage, and greater than 50% of sufferers within the intensive care unit with kidney damage might require dialysis, calling it a “identified complication” of the virus.

As issues stand, Brown is now present process day by day peritoneal dialysis from her dwelling whereas she waits to discover a new match, WBRL reported.

In keeping with the TV station, Brown is at present on the transplant waitlist at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta and hoping to be added to the waitlist at UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. She can be a part of Emory’s kidney alternate program, which requires two dwelling donors and two organ recipients to work.

“If certainly one of (Brown’s) family members shouldn’t be suitable together with her however is suitable with one other recipient within the system, the hospital might swap (Brown’s) donor with the opposite recipient’s donor that she is suitable with, and each would obtain organs,” WBRL reported.

“I wish to see her doing all of the issues {that a} younger lady needs to be doing proper now so we’re hoping and praying that we get a kidney quickly,” Felicia Brown, Alia Brown’s mom, informed the TV station.

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