Jonathan is a fighter and has persevered though a very long road to recovery that has been complicated not only by medical issues, but a huge weight gain and loss and even bullying by classmates. Jonathan has survived all of these trials and tribulations and now he needs your help.
Family and friends of Jonathan Arroyo are raising money for the nonprofit Help Hope Live to fund uninsured medical expenses associated with transplantation.
Updates (2)
November 29, 2018
Jonathan has been down a very long road, he started having medical issues at the age of 10, at which time he had to start seeing Dr’s atCHOP in Philadelphia. He needed Urologists and Nephrologists and he was gaining wait, even had to have a Vesecostomy and had to stay in the Seashore House for 6 weeks, a Childrens Rehabilitation Hospital. It was sad, when he returned home and back to school kids called him Diaper Dan etc therefore he was setup with a tutor at home for a while. He put on more weight getting up to 523 lbs. His diabetes became worse, finally he decided to have Gastric Bypass Surgery. Finally he dropped the weight, but not before it was too late. Jon went into Kidney Failure Nov 4th of 2010, we almost lost him. 3 weeks in the hospital and 9 years of Dialysis and and the Transplant list, but he had to earn the Transplant List by losing more weight, the weight dropped quickly for Jon thankfully. Finally on the Transplant list and he now weighs 191 lbs and has a brand new kidney as of Sept 4th 2018. He also graduated Muhlenberg Vo-tech, scoring highest on the Nocti’s test and graduating Muhlenberg H.S. in 2005. Help us help Jon finally have a normal life.
October 31, 2018
It was a long holiday weekend, Labor day. And Jonathan has been waiting for a 9 years on dialysis. And we received several phone calls from the transplant team over the last two years or so. He was always backup or primary never at the front of the list. We were starting to give up hope. Finally the morning of Sept 3rd 2018 we got a call saying he was backup again, we thought nothing of it. As the day went on 3:00 that afternoon we got another call that the primary declined the kidney, did Jonathan want it? I said YES, OMG! I then proceeded to call Jonathan on his cell phone and thought to my self Jon if ever you pick up your cell phone, do it now. He was at his girlfriends house. He picked up, I said Jon you got a kidney, we need to be at then hospital asap. We arrived at the hospital by 6:08 that evening. By 11:00 that night he was in surgery. That Friday he came home, but there were lots of doctors appointments and labs to be done even a few tests and procedures. He is almost two months out of surgery at this point and thank goodness, doing well with the new kidney.
