One of our highest mitzvot, the commandment of pekuach nefesh, is to preserve human life. Our tradition teaches us that to save one life is to save the entire world. We have another opportunity to do just that within our TBE community. Please read the following letter about donating a kidney for Matt Glazier from his wife, Julia:

Dear Friends, Family of Matt Glazier,

I’m writing to you today with a plea for help. To make a long story short, Matt has been battling a rare kidney condition over the past few months, and despite various treatments to return his kidneys to health, Matt will need a kidney transplant. We need the help of anyone and everyone willing to consider donating. If you’re open to being evaluated as a match, please continue reading and fill out the evaluation form linked below. If you’d prefer to help spread the word, please forward this letter to your family, friends and colleagues, so this can reach as many people as possible.

Long story longer, here’s what’s going on:

For anyone that doesn’t know my husband Matt, he’s simply one of the best people on Earth. He is a 34-year-old lover of life, and one of the most fun, kind and giving people you’ll ever meet. He is a lover of food and travel, an avid skier, and a fervent U. Michigan and Boston sports fan. He loves his friends and family passionately, and he tends to these relationships with immense care. Simply put, he is larger than life.

In January, Matt was feeling especially fatigued. We went to the doctor to get him checked out, and he ended up being rushed to the emergency room. Matt’s kidneys were failing quickly. He spent a week in the hospital and is still very sick, being treated from home. While we are still trying to figure out what caused this, his doctors believe he has a rare genetic condition called aHUS. After several weeks on medication to try to salvage the kidneys, it was determined the function was lost, so Matt has begun dialysis while we search for a living kidney donor.

Here’s what we need to help Matt:

The ideal donor we’re seeking is type O blood (positive or negative), does not have high blood pressure, and is not diabetic. However, if you do not meet the blood type requirement, and are still open to helping, we could consider using a resource called Paired Kidney Donation or PKD. This system creates groups of 2 or 3 or 4 donor/recipients pairs who are incompatible but can exchange between pairs. For example, I want to donate to my mom and we are incompatible and you want to donate to your mom but you are also incompatible. However, I am compatible with your mom and you with mine. We can then do a paired-donation: I donate to your mom and you donate to my mom.

If you meet any of these qualifications, and are willing to have an evaluation at a transplant center, we would be eternally grateful. This extensive medical evaluation will make sure donation is a safe procedure in the near and long-term for you. A kidney donation involves a fairly routine surgery, most often accompanied by a few days in the hospital. Thousands of these operations are done every year, with an extremely high success rate.

NEXT STEPS:
For those interested in being considered either a direct donor, or Paired Kidney Exchange donor, please fill out this online evaluation here: https://www.mghlivingdonors.org/. It’s a 15-minute application form and will ask you a few standard questions about your health history.* FYI, it will ask you to reference the transplant recipient by name and date of birth. That info is:
Matt Glazier
11/26/1986

After the application is submitted, the MGH transplant team will be in touch with you in the coming days via email. Please be sure to check your spam folder in case that email is flagged. *If you previously completed the form for Tufts, it is no longer viable; a new application needs to be made though MGH.

Finally, the following links are helpful resources for more information about living kidney donation:
About Living Donation
More About Living Donation

I know this is a big ask, but your gift could help someone who has positively affected so many other lives, and will continue to contribute so much good to this world. We are desperate to get Matt back to his normal, healthy, food loving, ski and travel-obsessed, self, and for him to return to work, play with our new puppy, enjoy our new home in Boston, and begin our life as a newly married couple.

Thank you for your well wishes, for your prayers, and for considering and passing along this request.

With Eternal Gratitude,
Julia Pepe Glazier