For more than two decades, Nicholas Kalogeros of Glastonbury has known kidney failure and end-stage renal disease were inevitable without a transplant.
A rare genetic disease, Alport syndrome, that damages small blood vessels in the kidney and eventually causes organ failure left Kalogeros on peritoneal dialysis the past year as he awaited a new kidney as a participant in Hartford Hospital’s Donor Exchange Program. He also suffered hearing loss, a byproduct of the syndrome, requiring a hearing aid in each ear.
His best chance, doctors told him, was a kidney from a living donor. Kalogeros, 34, who lives in Glastonbury with his wife Kristen and 18-month-old son, distributed flyers around town and spread the word any way he could.
Then he waited.
After a year on dialysis, remarkably, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, he suddenly had two potential donors — including Judi Edwards, a fellow Glastonbury resident he did not know who saw his flyer at a local Starbucks.
Watch what happened next:
Find out more about the Hartford Hospital Donor Exchange Program here.
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