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Dear Member,
This is a personal plea to all of the veterans and their families in our Veterans Advantage community.
I have been very fortunate to have served in and survived Vietnam. After my service, I went on to marry a remarkable woman (our Co-CEO). Together we raised a family of three children, now wonderful young adults.
I’m writing today about my late brother-in-law, who was not so fortunate, and his daughter, Kate, who is in desperate need of a kidney transplant.
Dan served in Vietnam as a Special Forces Officer. Like so many of our generation who served in Vietnam, he was regularly exposed to Agent Orange. He used to joke with me that “it was always raining” on his nighttime operations in the jungles of Vietnam. The “rain” on his operations was not real rain - it was the deadly defoliant, Agent Orange.
He didn’t think much about it at the time and nor did we. He came back to the states, married his sweetheart (my sister), launched a successful professional career, and began to raise two children. Years later, however, he began to feel the effects of his exposure to Agent Orange. Dan died 19 years ago at 56 years of age from lung cancer. It was an incredibly painful death that left behind a grieving spouse, a son and his daughter, Kate.
Kate is now 40 years old and an incredible, gifted woman. Sadly, she has developed polycystic kidney disease (PKD), a condition that has destroyed her kidneys and which requires a transplant to survive.
In the nine years since Kate’s diagnosis, she has endured painful ruptured cysts, extended hospital stays, surgeries, procedures, countless tests, and doctors appointments. Perhaps most frighteningly, just five months after her diagnosis in August 2012, she suffered a stroke and a ruptured brain aneurysm as a result of uncontrollable blood pressure (a common symptom of PKD). Kate was airlifted to Mass General for an emergency aneurysm clipping. She spent 10 days in the ICU and faced more than a month in recovery trying to regain her strength. As too many of us know, health insurance only covers a portion of these types of costs. In the meantime, the medical bills over the years are mounting. Kate continues to try to work full-time, but it has become increasingly more difficult as she is now on kidney dialysis.
As you may know, we need only one kidney, and far too many people are in need of these types of life-saving kidney transplants. My plea to you or whomever you know is this: if you are able, consider donating a kidney to Kate, the daughter of a Vietnam veteran who gave his life.
You can learn more about Kate here: https://gofund.me/6855bbe6. Please share and spread the word far and wide. #KidneyforKate
To learn about how to become a living kidney donor for Kate:
www.lahey-livingdonor.org
Named recipient: Katherine Sanders
Blood type: O- (Donor must be type O+ or type O-)
I understand this is not a small ask. I am tremendously grateful for your consideration. This effort begins to repay our debt of gratitude for the tragic loss of Kate’s father Dan in service to our country. Thank you.
Respectfully yours,
 Scott Higgins
Co-Founder, Veterans Advantage |
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