Dialysis Nurse Waiting for Kidney Transplant

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Dialysis Nurse Waiting for Kidney Transplant

GREENVILLE, N.C. - It?s a startling statistic: every ten minutes doctors add a new name to the organ transplant waiting list. And many of those names are from right here in the east. (more)

By: JONATHAN RODRIGUEZ | WNCT
Published: March 02, 2012

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GREENVILLE, N.C. - It’s a startling statistic: every ten minutes doctors add a new name to the organ transplant waiting list. And many of those names are from right here in the east.

"Eastern North Carolina has tons of people on dialysis,” said Arlette Whitaker, a dialysis nurse at ECU dialysis.

She knows exactly what her patients are going through.

“I’ve been on a transplant list since 2007, waiting patiently for a kidney,” said Whitaker.

She goes through dialysis 2-hours everyday.

"At first it was very hard I had to adjust my way of thinking, had to adjust my lifestyle, I had to make time for dialysis,” she explained.

She says it's allowed her to share a special bond with her patients

“That moment is usually when they're very frustrated, very overwhelmed and want to give up, then I have to tell them the story I know how you feel, 'you don't know how I feel unless you go though it' I’m going through it I know how you feel and this is what we go to do to get through it,” she said.

But she is just one of thousands of people waiting for an organ transplant.

"Just in north Carolina we have over 3,500 people waiting for a live saving transplant, and just in Eastern North Carolina makes up about 1/3 of that transplant list,” said Dwain Cooper Community Relations Coordinator at Carolina Donor Services.

He says minorities represent a large portion of that list.

"There are 112,000 people nationally waiting on the transplant list and of that number 18% are Hispanics, and the same for African Americans, 35% of African Americans need a kidney transplant,” Cooper explained.

But its growing awareness and the support of family that keep people like Whitaker who are waiting, hopeful.

Cooper says one donor can save up to eight lives with organs and enhance the lives of up to 50 others with tissue donations.

If you want to be an organ donor you can sign up at the DMV or register online here.

VIDEO http://www2.wnct.com/news/2012/mar/02/dialysis-nurse-waiting-kidney-transplant-ar-1997520/