Aubriella and her mother, Kim Cruz, are still hoping to find a living kidney donor as Aubriella fights a rare genetic disease she has had since birth.
Lower Bucks Source (LBS), with hopes of a positive update, spoke with Kim, mother of Aubriella, the little 8-year-old child from Bensalem who is very much in need of a kidney. LBS covered the family’s search for a donor late last year in hopes to reach a wider audience in finding a donor.
Aubriella suffers from Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease (ARPKD)/Congenital hepatic fibrosis (CHF). Approximately 1 in 25,000 children are born with ARPKD which can be fatal right after birth. A child with ARPKD who survives the newborn period, such as Aubriella, has a high chance of thriving. A donor will allow that to happen.
Kim remains hopeful that a donor will be found. Although none has been found yet, she was happy when she learned she was approved to donate through a “voucher” program.
“I am not a direct match to her, so this program is the next best thing to direct donation. How it works is I will donate my kidney and she will receive a voucher. When it comes time to her needing a kidney, she will be placed into a pool of living donors who are also involved in the voucher program and will be matched with someone that way. While this program is great and is definitely a better alternative to waiting for a deceased donor kidney there is still an unspecified waiting time for her to be matched with someone,” Kim said.
Aubriella is not on dialysis yet. Her last few labs were stable so things have remained the same for now. Aubriella is on the deceased donor waiting list as inactive-but is accruing waiting time, Kim added.
As any true mother does, Kim is protective, tries to help her child in any way and is willing to go through fire for Aubriella.
“If all goes well I will be donating a kidney in the next few months so she can receive a living donor voucher.”
For information on screening to be a donor for Aubriella, you can click here to fill out a Kidney Transplant Living Donor Questionnaire and the living donor information page. There is a prompt on the donor screening form to put in the recipient’s full name and date of birth (dob). Anyone filling out the form can put “Aubriella or ASM” as the name and can either put “todays date” as the DOB or can check off the box that says “I don’t know the recipients DOB.”
Please reach out to CHOP directly for any questions at (215) 590-3913 or email CHOPKidneyTransplantTeam@chop.edu
You can also help by sharing and encourage others to share her Facebook Page – Kidney for Aubriella.