- Eric Price, a KSL assignment desk editor, seeks a kidney donor to save his life.
- Living donation allows recipients to bypass the lengthy transplant waitlist.
- Paired donation can match incompatible donors, saving multiple lives through swaps.
SALT LAKE CITY — Eric Price spends his days helping others tell their stories. Now, he's sharing his own, in the hope that someone might help save his life.
Price, an assignment desk editor at KSL, was diagnosed with kidney failure at age 11. He's already had two kidney transplants. Today, at 32, he's back on dialysis — a grueling, time-consuming process he does at home five days a week.
"I basically plan and shift my whole day around this," Price said. "It's my whole life."
Each session takes about five hours. Afterwards, Price heads straight to work.
"I'm basically my own dialysis tech and a patient at the same time," he said.
He's one of more than 90,000 Americans currently waiting for a kidney transplant. The average wait for a deceased donor is three to five years or more. And for patients like Price, that wait can feel endless.
"That wait can be so long, and it's such a task to find a kidney that I feel like I'm never going to find this kidney," he said.
Living donation: A life-changing option
There is another option: living donation. A healthy person can choose to donate one of their kidneys, which allows the recipient to bypass the transplant waitlist entirely.
"It's a big ask," said Amber Khan with GiftWorks, a living donor program partnered with the University of Utah Health. "But on the opposite end of that, they have this incredible opportunity that most of us do not have, and that's to save a life."
Living donor kidneys tend to last longer and have better outcomes than deceased donor kidneys.
Even if you're not a match for Price, you can still help. The National Kidney Registry runs a system called paired donation, where incompatible donor-recipient pairs are matched with others in the same situation, so two or more lives can be saved through a chain of swaps.
Price said he's incredibly grateful for anyone willing to consider donation. For him, a new kidney would mean everything.
"I wouldn't have to worry about getting up and staying alive," he said. "I could just live my life and be healthy, and live life like anybody else would."
To learn more about Price's story, visit this website or his GoFundMe.*
*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisers and otherwise proceed at your own risk.
