Eleven and a half hours a day. Barbara Hoffman is on dialysis 11½ hours a day. It’s only a temporary solution, though, typically working no more than four or five years. And the Colorado woman is on year three of using a machine to remove toxins from her body.
Hoffman has end-stage kidney disease and needs a transplant. As of the start of 2016, more than 100,700 people in the U.S. were waiting for a kidney transplant, according to the . Only 20,000 kidneys are donated a year. Thirteen people die each day while waiting.
“The math,” Barbara’s daughter Marlow Hoffman said, “it’s not good.”
Marlow Hoffman wanted to do something so she’s to find her mother a kidney.
But she also went a step further. She has been fundraising to support , a group out of the University of California San Francisco that is working to develop a bionic kidney.
The project, which is set to start human testing this year, costs about $3 million a year. So that’s her goal.
“It’s not because it’s going to be something for my mom,” she said. “They’re moving quickly but I don’t think they’re moving quickly enough for her.”
By providing a year’s worth of funding, Marlow Hoffman said she can help make sure families in the future don’t share their experience. The initial end date for the fundraising campaign was extended to May 13 — Mother’s Day. So far, .
“If you’re in trouble, you need an advocate,” Barbara Hoffman said. “Somebody to speak for you when you can’t speak for yourself or when you don’t know what to say or what has to get done. She’s been all of that for me.”
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