PKD Awareness Day has become personal for Helen Schwarz

Tallahassee Democrat | Helen Schwarz
Photo: Helen Schwarz, administrative manager for the Tallahassee Democrat newsroom, with husband Terry Jones, has polycystic kidney disease. / Special to the Democrat

Editor’s note:
Helen Schwarz, the administrative manager for the Tallahassee Democrat newsroom, has polycystic kidney disease and is in urgent need of a kidney transplant. She wrote the following article to raise awareness, not only of her own situation, but of the disease itself, which affects about 600,000 people in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Today is National polycystic Kidney Disease Awareness Day.

In July, the U.S. Senate agreed to designate the first Wednesday in September as National polycystic Kidney Disease Awareness Day. Thank you Sens. Blunt, Schumer, Cardin, Mikulski and Rubio for submitting this resolution. Take a minute to read the resolution at www.pkdcure.org; it will open your eyes to the impact this disease has on our nation. It is a start to raising awareness about polycystic kidney disease (PKD), which needs the same national attention as cancer, AIDS and other well known diseases.

I am sure you have heard about cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, Down syndrome and sickle cell anemia. These diseases deservedly receive a lot of funding for research to find a cure and help stop them, and that is important. But what you might not know is that there is a terrible death sentence out there in the form of polycystic kidney disease. PKD affects more people than all of the diseases mentioned above combined. Yet very few people know about or understand this disease, and funding for research is small in comparison.
______________________________________________________ 
"You have the power to SAVE lives." 
To register as a donor TODAY
In California: 
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org 
Outside California: 
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net

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