Baltimore 4-year-old's social media campaign leads to perfect kidney donor match

BALTIMORE -- A 4-year-old from Baltimore successfully found a matching kidney transplant donor after raising awareness via social media and the "Living Donor Project". 

The nonprofit seeks to match living kidney donors to children on a kidney transplant waitlist.

The match is a huge milestone for Lucy as it will save her time on dialysis and keep her off that type of therapy.

"When they are on dialysis, you have to be hooked up for many hours, several times a week to the machine," Dr. Jennifer Verbesey, the Living Donor Transplant Program Director at MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute said. "It's very hard for those kids to go to school. It's hard for them to have any kind of semblance of a normal life."

Lucy has spent the majority of her life in and out of hospitals due to kidney disease, her mother Nicole Zais said.

"It's hard to realize how sick she actually is sometimes because it doesn't matter who, what, when or where, she's gonna light up your day," Zais said.

As the surgery nears, it typically allows the donor to go home the day after surgery and get back to their normal lives in just a few weeks.

Verbesey said living donors compared to deceased donors tend to have healthier kidneys that work faster and last longer. 

"I just think that it's important that the whole concept of a perfect match doesn't really exist, and that anyone who's interested should start the process," Verbesey said.

The match highlights the importance of living kidney donations and the power of social media.