On craigslist.com, you expect to see advertisements for cars, furniture and other merchandise. But a Dunedin woman is hoping somebody will see her ad for a kidney.
Amy Hobbs, 40, has lived with kidney failure all of her life. She received her first kidney transplant at the age of 13. Her late father was the donor. The organ lasted more than 15 years.
Doctors removed her remaining diseased kidney last August. She must now spend 3 days a week, 3 hours a day, at a dialysis center to remove toxins from her blood.
Hobbs said she got the idea for a Craigslist ad for a new kidney from a TV news report just before Christmas. In the report, a Palm Beach Gardens woman advertised on the site and got a response from a woman who eventually donated a kidney to her.
"I really want to have this transplant so I can be healthy again and not be sick and be able to do things with my children," Hobbs said.
Her children, daughters, Jessica, 16, and Olivia, 7, are too young to donate a kidney. Her husband, Rob, has a medical condition that precludes him from donating.
She's on the Tampa General Hospital transplant list but is hopeful the Craigslist ad will speed up the process. So far, two possible donors have contacted her from the ad, but they did not have the proper O-positive blood type.
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