Would You Ever?

Would you ever swim with sharks? Would you ever dance the Lambada in Brazil? Would you ever donate a kidney to a total stranger?

That’s what one man did in 2006, and it started a chain reaction of pay-it-forward-like good deeds for 10 people, all in need of a lifesaving kidney transplant.

A little girl at Children’s – 4-year-old Maggie Nail – is one of more than 79,000 people in the United States who is waiting for her good samaritan. An earlier surgery removed one of her diseased kidneys, and more than a year ago, her tiny body rejected one transplanted kidney. Today, she is living with no kidneys at all. To compensate, this sassy, blond-haired, blue-eyed little girl spends four days a week, four hours each day, receiving dialysis in the nephrology department at Children's – a routine she’s known since she was just four-days-old.

Last year, Children’s performed the most pediatric kidney transplants in Texas. You may remember some of them. During Kidney Transplant Awareness Month in April, we celebrate the 13 kidney transplants the team has already performed this year. We hope we’ll celebrate Maggie’s transplant soon.

So, would you ever?