Need a kidney in Austin? Hurry up and wait
KVUE TV Austin | ANDY PIERROTTI 
It’s not because she’s dressed in her high school mascot’s colors when being interviewed.
It’s not because she works up to 70 hours a week as Westwood High School’s assistant principal (its mascot is a warrior).
She's a warrior because she battles something much more difficult every second of the day. "I have polycystic kidney disease. I was diagnosed at 13-years-old," Mrs. Hodge explained.
Two years ago, her kidneys failed. So she put herself on a waiting list for a transplant. Every night she hooks herself to a dialysis machine to stay alive. Two bags of fluid flow through her body each night to remove toxins from her blood.
Her mother died of the disease and her only living sister struggles with it too. "It's a situation where I can't go and say, 'Hi, my name is Kim. Would you give me your kidney?' I can't do that," said Hodge.
A KVUE Defenders investigation uncovered that Hodge, and more than 400 other Austin patients in need of a kidney, wait longer than nearly all similar-sized Texas cities, putting their lives at risk.
According to reports from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, the median time Austin patients wait for transplants is more than six years. That's longer than the nation, and more than three times as long as all other non-major metropolitan Texas cities with local transplant programs.
Waiting Times:
• Austin: 6 years
• U.S. : 4 years
• Fort Worth: 2 years
• Lubbock: 1.5 years
• Galveston: 11.5 months
• Temple: 16 months
• Tyler: 15.7 months
It’s not because she works up to 70 hours a week as Westwood High School’s assistant principal (its mascot is a warrior).
She's a warrior because she battles something much more difficult every second of the day. "I have polycystic kidney disease. I was diagnosed at 13-years-old," Mrs. Hodge explained.
Two years ago, her kidneys failed. So she put herself on a waiting list for a transplant. Every night she hooks herself to a dialysis machine to stay alive. Two bags of fluid flow through her body each night to remove toxins from her blood.
Her mother died of the disease and her only living sister struggles with it too. "It's a situation where I can't go and say, 'Hi, my name is Kim. Would you give me your kidney?' I can't do that," said Hodge.
A KVUE Defenders investigation uncovered that Hodge, and more than 400 other Austin patients in need of a kidney, wait longer than nearly all similar-sized Texas cities, putting their lives at risk.
According to reports from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, the median time Austin patients wait for transplants is more than six years. That's longer than the nation, and more than three times as long as all other non-major metropolitan Texas cities with local transplant programs.
Waiting Times:
• Austin: 6 years
• U.S. : 4 years
• Fort Worth: 2 years
• Lubbock: 1.5 years
• Galveston: 11.5 months
• Temple: 16 months
• Tyler: 15.7 months
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