By Rachel Engel
MULVANE, Kansas — An EMT is looking for a kidney donor after remaining on the transplant list for more than a year.
Shawn Lamm worked for Mulvane EMS for 22 years before being forced to medically retire after going into congestive heart failure due to end-stage chronic renal failure.
“I hadn’t realized it had gotten to where it was,” Lamm told KSN.com. “I kept gaining weight, kept gaining more weight. I didn’t realize it was fluid weight. I was going into congestive heart failure and stuff like that, so that’s when I figured out it was end-stage and my kidneys weren’t working anymore.”
Lamm is currently receiving dialysis treatments and has been on the organ transplant waiting list for nearly a year. With no familial matches, and dialysis taking a toll on his body, he turned to the public for help.
“The transplant center when you first get on, they ask if you have any living donor options, which I didn’t, and they recommended that you ask around,” he said. “I was like, ‘Really, you go ask people for a kidney? That’s kind of crazy.’ I didn’t do it for a long time. I didn’t feel comfortable with it, but now, that time keeps going, it’s becoming that I need to do it for my kids.”
Without a match soon, Lamm could be forced to increase his dialysis treatments to four hours a day, five times a week. He hopes that decision won’t be necessary.
“If you are willing to give a gift like that to somebody, that would be amazing,” Lamm said. “I would be very appreciative and I have done a lot of hard work to get to where I am at now.”