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Former Kan. EMT seeks kidney donor

Shawn Lamm was forced to retire from Mulvane EMS after 22 years due to his chronic condition, and is now hoping someone will come forward as a match

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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.”

https://www.ksn.com/community/positive-connections/positive-connections-former-kansas-emt-puts-plea-on-social-media-can-you-donate-a-kidney/

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