Singer Selena Gomez was mysteriously absent from the summer music scene.
Now we know why.
“I’m very aware that some of my fans had noticed I was laying low for part of the summer and questioning why I wasn’t promoting my new music.” the pop musician posted September 14th on Instagram. “I found out I needed to get a kidney transplant due to my lupus and was recovering. It was what I needed to do for my overall health.”
Gomez, 25, was diagnosed with lupus in 2015.
“Lupus is a systemic disorder that can affect multiple organs in the body,” said Dr. Joseph Singh, a transplant nephrologist with Hartford Hospital. “But about 50 percent of people (with lupus) develop kidney problems of various severity.”
Gomez was fortunate to find a living kidney donor in friend and actress Francia Raisa. A photo posted to Instagram by Gomez shows the pair smiling and holding hands in side-by-side hospital beds.
Living donation has become a way to meet the increasing gap between the need for kidney transplants and available organs.
“We need more live donors to participate in the transplant process,” Dr. Singh said, noting that Hartford Hospital has a robust education and community outreach program to help people better understand the need for living donors.
“We have a lot of different options in order to help people go through the donation process. Even if the person is not a match for their friend or loved on, we have programs that enable (kidney) swaps or chains so that we can still facilitate the transplant.”
For more information on the Hartford Hospital kidney transplant program, call 1.860.972.4219.