With April being National Donate Life Month, a local resident is reminding the public how easy it is to do.
Ron Hinz retold his story on the WCUB Breakfast Club about the need to get a kidney, after going for a checkup for the first time in quite some time.
After getting tests done on his kidneys, he found out he had a disease called CRI, or Chronic Renal Insufficiency.
“What that means is that my kidneys were not functioning at a level that they would have expected them to for a person my age at that time,” he stated. “So then, of course, they wanted to know why my kidneys weren’t functioning properly.”
After another test, Hinz found out the cause of the CRI was from IgA nephropathy, or Berger’s Disease, which was causing his kidneys to fail.
He recounted not being able to tell.
“So it’s kind of insidious,” he explained. “You don’t know you have it. You can’t tell because if even if your kidneys are failing, it’s such a slow process you don’t notice it from day to day.”
Eventually, he was able to find people who would be able to donate a kidney to him.
However, the first two in line ended up not being able to donate due to other health issues.
The person who gave Hinz a kidney was his niece Pam.
Hinz says that it doesn’t matter what age you are to sign up to donate an organ. Anyone interested can go to donatelifewisconsin.org.
“You’ll need some information that you already know,” he described. “Your social, I would imagine. Drivers license number, you probably wouldn’t know, so you’d have to look that up or have it ready. Other than that, it’s pretty generic information. It takes a couple of minutes. It’s extremely secure.”
You can also check the box while getting a driver’s license at the DMV.
He has told Seehafernews.com previously that it takes 4 to 5 years to get a kidney off a waiting list, and over 90,000 people are waiting for a transplant.
