Our HFM #BadassoftheWeek is President/CEO of Kidney / Solutions: A Network of Transplant Experience, Amanda De Leon! Amanda grew up on the south side of San Antonio, TX. Throughout her life, she witnessed multiple family members go through dialysis due to various health issues. In San Antonio alone, there are over 5,000 patients on dialysis, a staggering number. In 2011, Amanda and her family got the news they never wanted to hear. Her father, Baldomero, was diagnosed with kidney cancer and was to start dialysis immediately. After five long years of dialysis her father was exhausted. Dialysis had changed who he once was and he voiced his need and desire for a kidney. While Amanda was busy raising her five children, she knew she needed to do something. And so she did! She began the testing process to see if she was a match to donate her kidney to her father. She searched the internet high and low for information on kidney donation and it all seemed positive and encouraging, but she never found exactly what she was looking for, an actual donor she could relate to. So it was then that she decided to start her own YouTube channel and document the whole testing process. With her family in mind she named her channel, Table For Seven. She documented the highs and lows of the testing process, the exciting day she received the phone call that she WAS A POSITIVE MATCH, and even documented the glorious day of her father's kidney transplant! Through Amanda's channel she has met numerous kidney donors thanking her for sharing her story. Two years post-kidney donation, Amanda De Leon is now the CEO of Kidney Solutions, a nonprofit in which she and her partner Kent Bressler, help ESRD (end-stage renal disease) and dialysis patients find their living kidney donors, FREE OF COST. They provide patients and their families with support, encouragement, and even a professional photo shoot that they share on all of their social media sites, asking for a kidney donor to be their hero. They understand that asking for a kidney is difficult, and they provide the assistance and support needed to find a match. Thank you to Amanda Leon for fighting the good fight ! (at Lake County, Indiana)
