06/05/2024
February 6, 2024
Hello, my name is Micki Glass. I am an advocate and friend for my sweet husband, Gerald Glass who is living with end-stage kidney disease. Gerald is a 73 year old retired Birmingham Fire Fighter who has given many years of his life to fire and rescue. He was married to his first wife for 48 years. She suffered with MS for nearly 20 years. Gerald was her full-time caregiver for this very lengthy illness. Since being diagnosed with a rare kidney disease in 2016, his quality of life has progressively declined. Gerald has been forced to give up many activities that he once enjoyed, i.e. golf, dancing, swimming, woodworking just to mention a few. In 2018 Gerald met me, a widow, we fell in love and married. We both love life but have not been able to embrace it fully because of this debilitating disease. Gerald must take many different medications everyday to fight the effects of swelling, weakness, muscle loss, nausea and generally feeling poorly most days.
Since the passing of his first wife, Gerald has continued to reach out with a helping hand and is a very active volunteer for Community Grief Support, an organization that reaches out to the bereaved community. He definitely is always helping others.
We now know after studying this disease, that over 1800 people in Alabama are waiting for a kidney transplant and many will die before receiving a kidney. Gerald’s disease has now progressed to the level that he is in need of a live donor kidney transplant which would eliminate the need for dialysis and would greatly improve the quality of life for him. I am reaching out to my community of family and friends to explore the opportunities for a living kidney. Living kidney donors are usually people between the ages of 18 to 60 who are free from kidney disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. They can help others and at UAB the donor surgery is done laparoscopically so recovery is quicker, generally 2 weeks. I am asking you if you would consider donating a kidney to Gerald. If you would like more information about how you can help others through living kidney donations, please contact me at (205) 514-3321 or Gerald at (205) 999-5667. You can also get information by scanning the QR code below.
If you don’t feel that you can donate, you can still help by sharing this information with your family and friends.
Thank you for your interest in the amazing gift of kidney transplantation.
Respectfully,
Micki Glass
Advocate for Gerald Glass
