Jessica Lam vividly remembers doctors telling her in January of 2023 that her kidneys were failing.
“My thought… honestly my first thought was, ‘My life is over,'” she said. “They said, ‘We’ll have to put you in the ICU the next couple of days.’ It was right before my 25th birthday. Everything was a blur. I was terrified.”
She went on dialysis three days a week.
“I was so scared,” Lam said. “Because you don’t know when you’re going to get your kidney.”
Three to five years is the average waiting period that tens of thousands of patients wait for a kidney. That’s when Lam took to Facebook, looking for a donor.
“I need something to save my life,” she said. “Advocating for myself took a lot, but the minute I posted it on Facebook I said, ‘There are people who will support you.’ Even the comments.”
Fifty-three-year-old Cara Bernard, living in a neighboring town, saw the post.
“I kept reading Jess’s story and I thought, ‘You know what? We’re the same blood type.'”
“I’m very fortunate that Cara found me,” Lam said.
Dr. Dheera Reddy of UMass Memorial Medical Center performed the transplant in November of 2023.
“It’s truly a unique situation, and special, unique people come forward,” she said. “A stranger reaching out to a stranger shows the goodness in the world.”
That goodness has made a world of difference for these one-time strangers turned friends.
“You could really save someone’s life and make a difference,” Lam said.
“You do not need two kidneys to live a healthy, normal life,” Bernard said. “Anybody out there thinking about donating, it’s a blessing.”
