My name is Emily, and I work in the Renal Transition and Young Adult Unit at Leeds Teaching Hospitals.

Most young adults are busy studying, working or having fun with their friends. But that’s not the case for Megan. At just 22 years old, she should be enjoying the thrills and experiences of a young adult, but unfortunately for Megan and many young people like her - some as young as five years old – her reality is the constant buzz of hospital machines, beeping monitors and trailing tubes in a bid to stay alive.

Read Megan's full story

Wouldn’t it feel great to be able to help and improve the lives of young people like Megan?

There are around 5,000 people like Megan waiting for a kidney transplant in the UK, and not everyone has family or friends able to donate them a live kidney. They miss out on significant milestones and times with friends and family.

It can be incredibly frightening and lonely.

I work within the renal services as a Young Adult and Transition Nurse Specialist and have seen first-hand the difference donations and gifts in Wills make at the hospitals. Just recently the charity has funded a pioneering clinical trial for kidney transplant patients here in Leeds, where pumping oxygen into a donor kidney can preserve its condition before a transplant.

Thanks to your generous support we’ve been able to provide this lifesaving research and equipment, but we still need your help to support young patients like Megan. So much about the treatment and transplant is completely out of their control.

You can help young adults like Megan regain control of their life and make the most of their youth. With your help, we can invest in targeted support for patients from the age of just 13 that attend the Renal Young Adult and Transition Service.

A donation today will help increase the support, advice and information we are able to provide for young patients transitioning from children to adult services and support them to live well with kidney disease.

We currently care for 103 young adults with kidney disease, and this increases every year. In the next 12-18 months we’re expecting to support another 42 young adults.

Please, if you can, help support patients like Megan with a donation today – together we can help young people fighting this chronic and life-long disease, as well as their loved ones caring for them.

Give a donation today and you will be helping to support children, young people and adults that need transplants live a full and as independent life as possible. Wouldn’t that feel incredible?

Thank you so much.

Donate to our Transplant Fundraising Appeal Today