Young woman seeks kidney donor

Ashley Norton at her desk in Middlebury’s Senior/Social Services office. She is the dispatcher there. (Marjorie Needham photo)

By MARJORIE NEEDHAM

April is National Donate Life Month, a month of activities sponsored by Donate Life America to help encourage Americans to register as organ, eye and tissue donors and to honor those that have saved lives through the gift of donation. Donate Life America (donatelife.net) is committed to increasing the number of lives saved and healed through organ, eye and tissue donation. The website says 100,000 people are waiting for organ transplants, 85% of them for a kidney, and 17 people die each day waiting for a transplant.

Middlebury resident Ashley Norton, 35, is among those hoping to find a kidney donor. She said this month is a good time to raise awareness about the need for organ donors and for kidneys in particular. “I’m just one of thousands of people who need an organ. It’s a very large problem that more people come on the list needing a kidney each year than there are donors,” she said.

Because people normally have two kidneys, they often can afford to donate one of them. Norton said people are encouraged to “Share your spare.” She said a lot of testing is done before kidney donation to ensure the donor will be fine. After the surgery, the donor’s remaining kidney often increases in size in what is called compensatory growth.

Kidney swaps also are done. When a donor doesn’t match the recipient they are donating to, their donated kidney can go to another recipient, and another donor’s kidney will go to the recipient the donor didn’t match.

While she waits for a donor, Norton is tied to a dialysis machine four times a week for about four hours a session so the machine can remove the toxins healthy kidneys would remove. She has been on dialysis this time since December 2019. That’s when she went into complete kidney failure and ended up in the intensive care unit because her second donated kidney failed. Now she is in need of a third.

Plagued by kidney disease since she was a child, Norton first went into kidney failure when she was 12. She had been having health issues since she was 8, but her disease went undiagnosed until her kidneys failed. Her father stepped in to help, donating one of his kidneys in 2001. That kidney remained healthy for about 13 years; then she was on dialysis for nearly three years before getting a second transplant in 2016.

An unexpected problem arose with the second transplant surgery. Shortly afterwards, a blood clot developed and impeded blood flow to the kidney. Doctors had to go back in and perform emergency surgery. “The transplant came, and we were all so excited,” she said, “and then I woke up to the news about the blood clot.” The second kidney did function but lasted only three years, almost to the day. In December 2019, she went into complete kidney failure again.

Another challenge presented itself in 2021 when she underwent surgery for a brain tumor. She said it took her a year to recover from that surgery, but she was cleared from that in 2022 and now is hoping to find a kidney donor. This month (April), she will travel to the New York University Transplant Institute at Langone to see if she qualifies for a transplant procedure done there. She said because she has had two transplants, her body would reject a donor organ that wasn’t an exact match. The Langone procedure helps patients like her.

She is on the transplant list at Yale. Those interested in donating a kidney can call the Yale donor and transplant line at 203-785-2565 and tell them they want to get tested to be an organ donor. She said it’s OK to say it’s for Ashley Norton. Donor information is completely confidential.

Norton said she encourages people to donate organs and blood. “I received numerous blood and plasma donations, so I encourage family members to donate blood. I can’t donate, but I try to influence other people to donate blood, plasma and bone marrow. It’s an easy way to have a big impact.”

She has started a blog, ashleyelizabeth.blog, that explains she needs a kidney donor, shows her journey with kidney disease, and shows others how she does home dialysis. She said it’s hard for her to ask for a kidney donor since she doesn’t want to be pushy. If her story resonates with people in some way and they want to help, that’s fine, “I just don’t feel comfortable just coming out and asking for help,” she said.