'I just want to be here for my daughters': Indy man needs a kidney. Could he have yours?

Indianapolis Star

4 days ago

As his daughters looked up in wonder at the fireworks booming above Hummel Park in Plainfield, Zachary Ryan Short focused every moment on creating happy core memories. It could, after all, be his last Fourth of July with the girls.
The 33-year-old single father is in stage 5 kidney failure. He's been on dialysis for the past three years.
Short has Alport syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by progressive kidney disease, often leading to renal failure. It can also cause hearing loss and eye abnormalities.
"It runs in my family, and all of my siblings have it," Short told IndyStar. "I'm currently waiting for a kidney transplant. I'm trying to hold on, but I can feel it. My body is shutting down, and if I don't get a kidney, I'm preparing to tell my girls goodbye."
He's the sole provider for his daughters, June Charlotte, 4, and Luna Mae, 3. The blue-collar dad is a truck driver who works 50-60 hours a week for D Transport. His daily routine consists of waking up at 4:30 a.m. and taking the girls to daycare before heading out on the road for his job at 6 a.m.
His oldest, "Junebug," is always excited and tries to help out any way she knows how.
"She's always like, 'Daddy, you want me to get your meds for you?' or she sees me super tired and says, 'Daddy, let me go to work. I'll go to work for you.' It takes a mental toll on you. I can't just play with them in the park or do things like that with them because I'm so tired."
His youngest, Luna, is his "wild child." Both, he says, are a blessing. He divorced their mother three years ago because he said she struggled with addiction. Still, he has a strong support system within his family and his fiancée helps him with the girls.
"We're set to get married and we're in the process of having her adopt them," Short said. "I've maxed out my life insurance policy just for them. It's hard to explain to a 3- and 4-year-old that daddy might not be here anymore. Junebug asked me one day, 'Daddy, are you dying?' and I said no. I didn't want to scare her, but we've been slowly trying to get them to understand."
The family is doing genetic testing on the girls to find out early if they have the genetic disorder, too.
Short is on the transplant list and has been putting call-outs on social media for the past three years, hoping he could find someone willing and able to donate the organ he needs to prolong his life.
"Please consider getting tested to see if you are a match," Short asks people in an online post. "This is my last attempt to make it for my children. The surgery will be 100% paid for, and my family will be forever grateful. I just want to be here for my daughters."
Short's had many people try to donate a kidney to him, but he hasn't found a good match. He's an A-positive blood type and can take a kidney from any donor who has Type A or O blood and has a transplant coordinator through IU Health.
Dr. Asif A. Sharfuddin, who specializes in Nephrology & Kidney Diseases for IU Health Physicians Kidney Health and is the medical director of kidney transplants, said the need for living donors simply does not meet the demand.
Sharfuddin, Short said, is also the doctor who did his aunt's transplant in 2001 when he was in residency, and has seen him in January of every year.
Sharfuddin said 90,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant in the U.S., and only 24,000 receive them. About 6,000 transplant recipients have kidneys from living donors, while the majority have kidneys from deceased donors.
If a patient doesn't have a living kidney donor, they typically wait at least 3-5 years. By remaining in kidney failure, recipients, like Short, can get sicker over time, so timing is important in kidney donation.
'People think it starts with being a match, but the process starts even before that," Sharfuddin told IndyStar. "There are steps ahead of time before we even get to the match."
At IU Health, a potential donor can go to a local lab for blood type testing to see if they're compatible with a recipient. Tissue type-testing needs to be done, too, and a kit will be sent to the potential donor for them to get done at a local lab.
Potential donors also undergo a psychological evaluation throughout the process.
If they are a good match, surgery can take nearly three hours and donors usually go home the next day.
People worried they might need that kidney later in life have a reassurance of sorts.
"If a donor ever had a problem in the future where they needed a kidney themselves, they have priority on the waiting list," Sharfuddin said. 'They did this gracious act years before, so of course, they shouldn't have to wait years for a kidney, and that's built into our systems around the country. Luckily, we don't have to use it often because that chance is very low."
Anyone interested in being tested as a potential donor should contact IU Health's transplant center andfill out a form online at iuhealth.org/find-medical-services/living-kidney-donation. The forms are reviewed by transplant coordinators, and if someone can move along in the process, they'll get a phone call.