My name is Hunter Hallmark and I am 35 years young. I finally married my college sweetheart and life couldn’t be better. We love traveling and we’ve been all over the world together. The experiences, cultures and the adventures together, are memories I will never forget. We anticipate our next adventure in becoming parents.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that 2020 was a tough year for everyone and we all looked forward to it being over. Now starting fresh in 2021, I was diagnosed with stage 5 chronic kidney disease on January 12th. A person with end-stage renal disease has a glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of 15 ml/min or less. I have a GRF of 8 ml/min, losing nearly all their function. At this point the options are dialysis and a transplant.

Regular dialysis can keep me alive, but long-term dialysis is hard on my body and other organs. A transplant could give me a longer, healthier, more normal life I would love.
But the reality is that getting a kidney donor is not easy. About 100,000 are in line on the waitlist for a deceased kidney donor. The average wait time is five years.