SPRINGFIELD, Pa. (CBS) — In Delaware County, people are pulling together to help get a kidney for a young man running out of time.
“He knows I’ll do anything for him and this is the one thing I can’t do,” Helene Aldorasi said.
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Aldorasi wants her son to catch a break — luck, fate, maybe a miracle.
“I want my son to go on and live his life. He was a normal kid before any of this happened, a healthy kid and he deserves to live,” she said.
Gregory McNamee is 23 and doctors say his days are numbered.
“I got diagnosed with end-stage renal failure, membranous nephropathy,” McNamee said.
This Springfield, Delaware County family has been patient, but time is working against them.
McNamee needs a match. His blood type is O positive. An O negative donor would also work.
Saving his life at the moment is nine hours of nightly dialysis.
“Now he’s doing it seven nights a week, he’s been doing it for 13 months,” Aldorasi said.
McNamee said early last year headaches and vomiting persisted. He thought it was COVID.
A couple stays at the hospital for weeks at a time left them no answers. And then a specialist gave them the news that upended their lives.
“They have no idea how or why I function at less than 20% function between both kidneys. I need one to at least go back to normal,” McNamee said.
Aldorasi has told her story on Facebook, and other moms have been moved by her resilience.
“I heard her say, ‘If my son doesn’t get a kidney, he’s gonna die.’ I just stopped,” Lisa Riggin said.
Riggin first reached out to the family a month ago and has since been a force to spread the word about their cause.
They all met in person for the first time Tuesday.
“I just felt it in my heart that I had to help her. I didn’t know him or her before today,” Riggin said.
McNamee is on the transplant list at Penn but his place in line is unknown.
“I just wanna go back to a normal life,” he said.
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