Thank you for visiting my Personal Fundraising Page. Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to make a contribution to my fundraising efforts. Many thanks for your support -- and don't forget to forward this to anyone who you think might want to donate or join our team!

Any donations over $40 will go in a raffle with a chance to win a $50.00 gift certificate for Antico Posto an Italian Cafe & Wine Bar in Oakbrook, IL.

Here is a little history on my niece Izabelle, she is the reason I have become involved in the Kidney Foundation and Donate for Life. Sometimes it takes something to go wrong to make you realize that you should do more for others and help out where it is needed.

This will be our 1st walk we are doing, we are hoping to start a tradition and do this every year for Izabelle and everyone else who suffers too.

On August 5th, I became an aunt again to a beautiful baby girl Izabelle Nicole, we call her Princess Belle or Tinks for Tinkerbelle (thats how we came up with the team name). Not long after her birth, we learn Izabelle will have a life long struggle.

Here is Izabelle's story in my sisters words:

In December of 2006 I learned I was pregnant. It was the most amazing feeling to see two lines show up on the pregnancy test but then it quickly went from being excited and happy to being nervous and scared. Almost immediately after finding out I went to the doctor so they could watch my thyroid so the baby wouldn't become in danger. Eventually we learned I had gestational diabetes but I was able to maintain it with my diet. Just to make sure the baby wasn't getting too big ultrasounds were done often. During one of them we found out that it showed the baby had something wrong with one of the kidneys. After seeing a specialist he confirmed the findings but said he was unable to detect actually what was wrong. There was nothing we could do until the baby was born so I began to focus on my pregnancy. I loved being pregnant, watching my belly grow everyday was amazing, feeling the baby kick and move all the time was a feeling I cannot describe and decorating her nursery was all making my pregnancy the best experience I could ask for. On August 5th, 2007 I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Izabelle Nicole 7lbs, 18in

What more could I ask for? I just had the most beautiful baby I could imagine. My family was now coming together. Little did we know that on August 8th we would learn that she was born with a solitary kidney. Being born with one kidney isn't that bad but when that kidney was having problems functioning correctly it was putting her life in danger. Izabelles blood levels were over double the ranges they should have been. At 5 days old she underwent her first surgery and had a nephrostomy catheter placed in her back. At 6 days old we went home from the hospital feeling confident that over time she will get better. Little did we know at 13 days old Izabelles labs would show everything was sky rocketing and now putting her life in extreme danger. She was readmitted to the hospital in the Step Down Unit but shortly moved to the PICU. She then underwent another surgery to have a dialysis catheter placed in her belly. She began receiving 12 hours of dialysis daily. It was manually distributed by the nurses because there is no machine that can administer such a small amount. We had to go from 20cc of diaylsis to 60cc in order to use a machine and go home. The doctor had explained that her anatomy was the most confusing he has ever seen. For her fourth surgery they decided to recontstuct her ureter structure since it wasnt right. After that surgery and about 2.5 weeks of dialysis Izabelles kidney began to miraculousy function again. The blood work started falling into normal ranges and she was then taken off of dialysis. This was something we weren't expecting not even the doctors were expecting it. We were told to prepare ourselves for her going home on 12hours of dialysis and beginning to look for a kidney donor when she turned one year of age. We were preparing ourselves for the road ahead when she did a complete turn around. Shortly after being off of dialysis Izabelle was able to go home and having her home was a great feeling. There was never a dull moment though once we got home. She went twice a week for lab work at first, then once a week, moving to once every other week and we have finally made it to the once a month mark. Quite often we have little set backs when she gets sick or has a fever she needs to be seen right away. She has spent one night in the hospital since her release, 3 ER visits and had one more surgery to have her dialysis tube removed in November. With one more surgery to go in October of 08' we have a promising future to look forward to. There are some things in life Izabelle wont be able to experience though. She will never be able to play contact sports, go horsing back riding or even hit the slopes for a day of snowboarding with her daddy. We need to raise her to be extremely careful because any kind of injury to her kidney could put her right life right back in danger and after spending a total of 31 days in the hospital overall, 7 surgeries, 2.5 weeks of dialysis, over 25 different x-rays, cat scans and countless amounts of blood draws we never want to be back there. But for now she is doing better then ever. She has been gaining weight and hitting the milestones right on target. She is finally sitting up on her own and making the first attmepts to crawl. You would never know that she went though everything she did by looking at her. She just has a smile that can make your heart melt.

Going through everything we went through made us not only stronger but made us realize never take life for granted. Although Izabelles future looks promising there can always be something that can trigger her kidney to fail again so on June 29th we will be walking for the National Kidney Foundation Gift of Life Walk. We are setting our goals high for this walk. We plan on raising some money and raising the awareness of kidney disease. We will never put this experience on the back burner we will make it our goal in life to do what we can for other families that are experiencing some of the things we experienced.

Once we learned Princess Belle, which I like to call her, had kidney problems I started researching many different foundations and emailing different places to look where I can volunteer my time.

Sometimes things happen in your life and it just opens your eyes to things you never really thought about. Here is my beautiful niece 7lbs completly innocent and she is looking to need a transplant sometime in the near future. To me its not fair, but as we all know life is not fair at times.

It helped me realize shes not the only one out there needing a transplant, while I did my research I came across this website called Donate for Life. I learned that even though many of us have signed the back of our drivers liscence that a new law passed and we now have to register online.

I would like to take this opportunity and ask everyone to please take a moment and visit this site and if your not registered yet, please check it out and sign up on line.

Below is the link.
http://www.giftofhope.org/donatelife/online-community.htm

Thank you for taking your time to read my story on why I have decided to become a team captain for Team IzzyWalkez, if you are interested in joing our team please do so, otherwise you can always donate if you wish too.

 Any donations over $40 will go in a raffle with a chance to win a $50.00 gift certificate for Antico Posto an Italian Cafe & Wine Bar in Oakbrook, IL.

The Lopez and Cary family all thank you for your support and kindness you have given all of us and Izabelle over the past year.

 Hope to see you at the walk on June 29th!