You may remember reading about Kelsey Crider a few months ago. Just weeks after graduating from Boulder High School last year and making plans for college, Kelsey was diagnosed with Medullary Cystic Kidney Disease. After a failed transplant from her father, Steve’s kidney, the search was on for a new suitable donor.
Unwilling to endure the standard 2 year waiting period on the National Kidney Registry, the family launched a high intensity search for a new kidney. Dan Powers, a member of Steve Crider’s University of Florida alumni club came forward and offered the ultimate gift to Kelsey. Last week, doctors at the University of Colorado Hospital performed her kidney transplant surgery with apparently positive results.
According to Kelsey’s mother, Debbie, the new kidney began working even before the doctors had finished her surgery and her creatinine levels, an indication of kidney function, are now within the normal range.
Although Dan Powers had never met Kelsey, he felt compelled to help because of his own two teenage sons. “He just felt that if it were him and his kids, he would want someone to step forward,” said his wife, Ellie Pope.
It’s good to know that there are people like Dan Powers in this world and here’s to Kelsey Crider’s bright future.
