needing your prayers and help

February 16, 2003

Greetings and Blessings to each who is reading this email, I am writing

this due to a special need I have. I have been on Kidney dialysis for the past

5 years. I am on the Transplant list at University of Louisville...without much

hope of a cadaver transplant in the near future. I am in desperate need of a

kidney. I've had to switch from hemodialysis - I have no veins left to put a

graft in -- to peritoneal dialysis - this involoves putting about 8lbs of a

special fluid into a tube in my abdomen, then draining it out - I have to do

this 5 times a day in order to stay alive. Each exchange takes about an hour to

do.. So you see, I pretty much live to do dialysis instead of just doing

dialysis to live. This doesn't leave me with much time to do anything else in

my life...not that I have the energy or strength to do much anyway. I have very

strict diet and fluid restrictions I must follow and many medications taken

daily. I feel myself becoming weaker day by day, as the toxins continue to

accumulate in my system...I have a lot of stiff joints, aches and pains, nausea

and incessant itching. By the way, my kidneys were so diseased they had to be

removed 4 years ago. Unfortunitely I have no family members or friends who are

a match for me a new kidney. This is why I am writing this plea for help. I am

an O+ blood type and am seeking a live donor - better chance of a successful

transplant than with a cadaver kidney. It costs the donor absolutely nothing

for the surgery, plus you'll get one of the finest physical and psychological

checkups even if you don't qualify in the end. Recover time varies according to

what type of activity you are involved with, so anywhere from 2 weeks to a month

off from work...home from the hospital in 3 or 4 days! Some friends of mine

have suggested setting up a trust fund so people can donate money to help pay

the donor's wages while off from work. This seems an excellent idea, as most

people cannot afford to take time off from work to do something so wonderful for

another human being. A local bank has agreed to take care of all the donations.

So please, take a few minutes to sit quietly in meditation or prayer to look

deep within your soul. Ask what you can personally do to help. Can you be a

possible donor? Can you donate money to help a person who would like to be a

donor, do so? If nothing else PLEASE keep me in your daily prayers. Life

expectancy on average for a dialysis patient is only around ten years, but with

the right kidney I can live well into my 80's or so.. I am a 50 year old former

registered nurse, single female with 2 children. I struggle to make ends meet

on a $500. disability check a month, so there's no way I can pay the donor's

wages. I can barely pay my house payment and cannot afford insurance for

myself, my children, my home or auto. I sold my auto and must depend on the

generosity of my neighbors to get me places such as to the doctors and grocery.

I cannot afford a phone but a friend gave me a prepaid cell phone so the

hospital can reach me should they get a kidney. I am using a friend's computer

to keep in touch with the world around me.

If you would like to be tested as a possible donor, please call the Transplant

clinic at 1-502-852-5757. Ask to speak to Melaine Stein or any of the other

transplant coordinators. Tell her you would like to be tested for Marlene Roby

from Cloverport, KY. If you wish to make a donation to the transplant fund,

make checks out to Marlene Roby Transplant Fund, send to Breckenridge Bank,

P.O. 7, Cloverport, KY. 40111.You may call the back at 1-270-788-3749, ask to

speak to Aggie for verification that this is on the up and up and not a scam. I

ask that you help in any way you can. I know that these are hard times, but

every penny we get will help. PLEASE, I beg of you, pass this along to your

friends and groups you are in. The more people we can get involved, the easier

it is on each of us. My time is growing shorter every day I go without a

kidney, so please help however you can, as soon as you can. The quicker we can

get the word out to the most people the quicker we'll get results. My home

address is Marlene Roby, Cloverport, KY 40111. My email is

Lilithlidia. Brightest Blessings to each of you, Marlene

Send Flowers for Valentine's Day

February 16, 2003

Note: forwarded message attached.

Send Flowers for Valentine's Day

Greetings and Blessings to each who is reading this email, I am writing this due to a special need I have. I have been on Kidney dialysis for the past 5 years. I am on the Transplant list at University of Louisville...without much hope of a cadaver transplant in the near future. I am in desperate need of a kidney. I've had to switch from hemodialysis - I have no veins left to put a graft in -- to peritoneal dialysis - this involoves putting about 8lbs of a special fluid into a tube in my abdomen, then draining it out - I have to do this 5 times a day in order to stay alive. Each exchange takes about an hour to do.. So you see, I pretty much live to do dialysis instead of just doing dialysis to live. This doesn't leave me with much time to do anything else in my life...not that I have the energy or strength to do much anyway. I have very strict diet and fluid restrictions I must follow and many medications taken daily. I feel myself becoming weaker day by day, as the toxins continue to accumulate in my system...I have a lot of stiff joints, aches and pains, nausea and incessant itching. By the way, my kidneys were so diseased they had to be removed 4 years ago. Unfortunitely I have no family members or friends who are a match for me a new kidney. This is why I am writing this plea for help. I am an O+ blood type and am seeking a live donor - better chance of a successful transplant than with a cadaver kidney. It costs the donor absolutely nothing for the surgery, plus you'll get one of the finest physical and psychological checkups even if you don't qualify in the end. Recover time varies according to what type of activity you are involved with, so anywhere from 2 weeks to a month off from work...home from the hospital in 3 or 4 days! Some friends of mine have suggested setting up a trust fund so people can donate money to help pay the donor's wages while off from work. This seems an excellent idea, as most people cannot afford to take time off from work to do something so wonderful for another human being. A local bank has agreed to take care of all the donations. So please, take a few minutes to sit quietly in meditation or prayer to look deep within your soul. Ask what you can personally do to help. Can you be a possible donor? Can you donate money to help a person who would like to be a donor, do so? If nothing else PLEASE keep me in your daily prayers. Life expectancy on average for a dialysis patient is only around ten years, but with the right kidney I can live well into my 80's or so.. I am a 50 year old former registered nurse, single female with 2 children. I struggle to make ends meet on a $500. disability check a month, so there's no way I can pay the donor's wages. I can barely pay my house payment and cannot afford insurance for myself, my children, my home or auto. I sold my auto and must depend on the generosity of my neighbors to get me places such as to the doctors and grocery. I cannot afford a phone but a friend gave me a prepaid cell phone so the hospital can reach me should they get a kidney. I am using a friend's computer to keep in touch with the world around me.

If you would like to be tested as a possible donor, please call the Transplant clinic at 1-502-852-5757. Ask to speak to Melaine Stein or any of the other transplant coordinators. Tell her you would like to be tested for Marlene Roby from Cloverport, KY. If you wish to make a donation to the transplant fund, make checks out to Marlene Roby Transplant Fund, send to Breckenridge Bank, P.O. 7, Cloverport, KY. 40111.You may call the back at 1-270-788-3749, ask to speak to Aggie for verification that this is on the up and up and not a scam. I ask that you help in any way you can. I know that these are hard times, but every penny we get will help. PLEASE, I beg of you, pass this along to your friends and groups you are in. The more people we can get involved, the easier it is on each of us. My time is growing shorter every day I go without a kidney, so please help however you can, as soon as you can. The quicker we can get the word out to the most people the quicker we'll get results. My home address is Marlene Roby, Cloverport, KY 40111. My email is Lilithlidia. Brightest Blessings to each of you, Marlene

Send Flowers for Valentine's Day

February 20, 2003

Mystic Herbs <mysticherbs wrote:

"Mystic Herbs" lilithlidiaSubject: Re: needing your prayers and helpThu, 20 Feb 2003 16:31:15 -0600

Dear Marlene,

I received your email today concerning your search for a kidney donor. My friend, I sat and sobbed for a long time. Then I got my self together and realized there was something I could do to help you. So, I am writing this in the hopes that you will send it out to everyone who received your email.

I can not give you my kidney, as it is being reserved for my sister who has terrible diabetes and will likely suffer from kidney failure in the coming years. It is very unfortunate that she is ill, as I have O+ blood and would likely be a match for you. I have also gone through the kidney testing up to the point where we were ready for the surgery.

I may not be able to give you a kidney and believe me, I would if not for my sister, but I realized that what I can do is to tell your friends about what it means to donate a kidney, and what they have to go through in order to be accepted as a donor. So, sit back, light up a smoke and relax. This is gonna take awhile.

Dear Friends of Marlene

I became a kidney donor for my Father. He had been in renal failure for three years and his health was failing. He decided to try to find a donor. My sister and I went with him to meet the transplant team in Indianapolis, Indiana. They asked me if I would be interested in trying to see if I was a match for him, and I agreed immediately. There was never a question of do I or don’t I, no thought was needed for me to instantly agree.

My Father was always the center of my world. My Dad, my friend, my bank when I needed a loan; he had always been there for me from the day I was adopted. Yes, I said adopted. It never mattered to us that he had adopted me, he was my Dad and I loved him with all my heart. I would have died to save him.

Goddess works in mysterious ways. I matched him perfectly, even though the odds were against the match. The transplant was set for February of 2000, which would be about 4 months from the time I finished all my needed testing. For almost a month, I was in my Doctors office twice a week getting blood tests, urine tests, mammogram, pelvic exam, more blood tests, even more blood tests. By the time it was done, I knew EXACTLY what was wrong with my body and what was working perfectly. Lungs were a little screwed up from smoking, but I had two perfect kidneys, and we were good to go. These tests cost me nothing but my own time, and not really very much of that.

We were anxiously awaiting the February transplant when our world fell apart. My Dad had a mild heart attack on January 3rd of 2000. He came through it fine and had a defibrillator implanted to stop any possibilities of future complications. But, that set the transplant back a couple of months, to late April. February 3, 2000 my Mother died. Even though her death was expected, it was still a great loss, especially for my Dad. Six weeks later on March 15th, my Dad passed on. The ides of March. My world collapsed, as I am sure your can imagine. He did not die from his heart problems, nor did the renal failure cause his death.

I lost my Father due to gangrene. An infection had set in and went unnoticed long enough to cause gangrene to begin. The infection was caused from improperly cleaned shunts and tubing. This is a bigger problem for kidney dialysis patients than the renal failure is. Once gangrene starts, death is almost inevitable.

That is the worst case scenario for any dialysis patient. I hope that by my sharing this with you, it causes you to look carefully at what Marlene is facing, and what you can do to help her. I highly encourage you all to at least have the simple blood test done to see if you match her for a transplant. If you don’t match, then you can rest assured you have done all you can to help.

If you do match, then please think carefully about donating a kidney. Speak frankly to your Doctor about it as well as to her transplant team. They will be more than happy to answer all of your questions. If you wish, please email or telephone me, and I will be happy to talk to you about it as well.

Do you know what a fabulous opportunity it is to be able to give someone a gift of this nature? Not only do you give them their life, you give them a quality of life that they would never have if not for your gift. You become a Hero. There are very few times in a persons life when they have an opportunity to save a friends life. This is one of them.

Please don’t dismiss her request as easily as you would the morning paper. Take the time to really think about it and search your soul to see if you have what it takes to become a Hero. If you do, then take the blood test to see if you match. If you do match, please consider giving Marlene her life back.

I have watched her for the past few months as she declines in health and in spirit. If we lose her to this debilitating disease, that loss will affect all of our lives, especially those of us who could have done something to help, but did nothing.

I beg you to search your heart and soul and really think about the things I have said. Thank you for listening to my story. I only hope that it will help, and that Marlenes’ children do not have to go through the devastating loss that I did.

May your day be filled with the brightest of blessings

Nydia

MSN 8 helps ELIMINATE E-MAIL VIRUSES. Get 2 months FREE*.

Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more