"Once my kidney function dropped below 21 percent, which is the time you can get on the transplant list, that's when things really changed. I did not want to go on dialysis. I'd met some people on dialysis and it's a very difficult way of life and I want to try to find a living kidney donor. 

At the time I got diagnosed and my kidney function was less than 21 [percent], the average wait time for cadaver kidney in Georgia was seven years. So it was a pretty long time, you know, over 2.5 years from the time I qualified to get on the list of the time I got my kidney."