Hudson woman on a roll to find a kidney donor

According to the Living Kidney Donor Network, there are 93,000 Americans on the waiting list for a kidney — and for many of these people, time is not working in their favor.

Kasey Lindstrom, 35, of Hudson, first found out she needed a kidney transplant in November of last year. She was diagnosed with lupus at the age of 15 and after years of flare-ups caused by the autoimmune disease, she was told she is now in stage four kidney failure.

"After having as many flare-ups as I have, most of my kidneys are scar tissue at this point,” Lindstrom said.

Her donation coordinator through Hennepin Healthcare told her it could take anywhere from a year to five or more to find a living donor that is a match. That’s when Lindstrom decided to go searching for a match on her own terms.

"I just wanted to be able to find a way to get the word out there without having to paste it all over Facebook and just there," she said.

If you live in the east Twin Cities metro, you may have seen her car driving around town. It’s a bit of a rolling billboard and not typically the type of advertisement you see on car. But Lindstrom knew she needed something unconventional to catch people’s attention.

The decal reads:

Kidney Donor Needed for Kasey Lindstrom

34 yr old female looking for “A” or “O” blood type

Contact 612-873-7708 or Jennifer.Bodner@HCMED.org

Lindstrom, her boyfriend, her father and his fiancée all have the decals printed on their cars. Their hope is that it will catch the attention of someone who meets the qualifications and is willing to be a donor. If someone in need finds a match on their own, they’re able to jump the waiting list. Lindstrom could then have a donor waiting before her kidneys completely fail and she needs to be put on dialysis.

"If I don’t find a donor when I need it, I will go on dialysis. It will be at-home dialysis overnight. I’ll be hooked up to a machine overnight, it will just clean my body out,” she said. "You don’t know when it’s going to happen. You don’t know when all of a sudden you’re just going to go downhill. Today I could feel fine and tomorrow I could not be able to get up."

Lindstrom is searching for a donor with Type A or Type O blood. Anyone who is interested in helping or getting more information can reach out to her donor coordinator, Jennifer Bodner, at jennifer.bodner@hcmed.org or 612-873-7708.