Kristi Lee Flick spends about 20 hours or so each week hooked up to a home dialysis machine— 4-1/2 to 5 hours, four days a week.

Still, she works full time and has hope that one day she’ll someone will come forward with a match and willingness to give up a kidney so she can stop those time-consuming, tiring, yet life-saving treatments.

Flick is 35 years old, lives and actually works with her mother, Loretta Bourne, who usually handles the job of dialysis nurse.

It’s her mother who is making a plea to the community— an idea she said that came from doctors at Wake Forest University.

Flick has been on the National Registry for a kidney transplant for 3-1/2 years, along with registries at University of Virginia and Wake Forest.

The Wake Forest doctor told the family that reaching out to the community provides a good opportunity to connect with someone willing to donate a kidney rather than waiting and waiting.

“It just would be so much better for her if she could find a matching donor and have everything scheduled,” Bourne explained. Plus, she noted, a live donor is better than a kidney from a cadaver.

Several members of her family have tried to match, but that’s just not worked out for Flick.

Flick was diagnosed with Stage 3 Chronic Kidney Disease in May 2009. She remained in State 3 until 2014. She had two kidney biopsies that were inconclusive and the family still has no idea what caused the disease.

They have been to UVa, Duke and Wake Forest looking for answers.

In 2016 she was diagnosed with Stage 5 Chronic Kidney Disease which lead to nausea,  vomiting and chronic fatigue.

In November of that year, her nephrologists thought it was time for dialysis. She only had 9 percent kidney function at the time, and the doctors thought she would be a good candidate for at home hemo dialysis.

She started in the clinic with her mother, father and brother for a six-week training class for four days a week.

“We had to learn how to access the ‘button holes’ (the two holes in her arm where the needles are inserted) to do the treatment,” Bourne said. “After two weeks of dialysis, she started feeling better. She didn’t realize how bad she felt until some of the toxins were removed.”

After completing the six-week course, and to this day, she is doing dialysis at home four days a week.

She is still working full time and after work on Monday, Wednesday and Friday she does the treatments, then again on Sunday.

“After treatment on those days she is totally exhausted, and fortunately it’s time for bed,” Bourne explains.

While the treatments make her feel better, there are side effects.

As you’d expect from any parent, Bourne is searching. “Kristi needs a kidney transplant,” she said. “I know it is asking a lot for someone to donate and organ.”

Bourne can be contacted at 540-797-1735 or by email at Loretta.Bourne@gmail.com.