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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u201cShe\u2019s gone through a lot, it\u2019s more than I can put into words, but she always keeps a smile on her face,\u201d said Rekeria McCall, Zarmya\u2019s Mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At 7 years old, Russell was diagnosed with Atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome. She had her first kidney transplant in 2016, which failed, and now, she needs another one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHer strength gives me strength, each and every day, to show up here and to be here, and Tampa General is awesome,\u201d her mother said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zarmya is at Muma Children\u2019s Hosptial, which currently has 21 pediatric patients waiting for a kidney transplant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen people think about kidney disease and hemodialysis, we don\u2019t typically think about kids,\u201d said Dr. Paola Zayas, Pediatric Nephrologist at Muma Children\u2019s Hospital at TGH. \u201cWe never think that kids can be going through dialysis or needing a kidney transplant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To help find her a match, the organization, Kidney for Kids, is traveling all around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRight now, we\u2019re on a 20 city, 8,000-mile trip to recruit adult living kidney donors for children. We do that by talking to the patient and family about the story, in this case, Zarmya\u2019s, and I tell about being a living kidney donor at 63,\u201d said Brian Martindale, Executive Director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This organization recruits adult living kidney donors and helps provide financial assistance through grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen people are looking at this story and wanting to register for Zarmya, they can register through Muma Children\u2019s Hospital at TGH, as well as the National Kidney Registry,\u201d Martindale said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zarmya\u2019s family said not only would getting a new kidney help her health, but it would also give her another chance to live a normal life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust to have a life outside of the hospital, for her to be able to go to school and have a sense of normalcy,\u201d McCall said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So far, Kidney for Kids has found 14 donors for 14 children, and they hope to find a match for Zarmya.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An organization raising awareness and support for pediatric kidney donations is working to help a Polk County teenager at Tampa General Hospital. Kidney for Kids is traveling across the country… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDdcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtOTQtNS53ZWJwP2ZpdD01MTklMkMyMTkmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJQb2xrIENvLiB0ZWVuIGluIG5lZWQgb2Yga2lkbmV5IGRvbmF0aW9uIGFzIG5vbnByb2ZpdCB0cmllcyB0byBoZWxwIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.r5l26ihRLhgbmWMTbBv-LuCIxB08HyNbREyznAFAy3kMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":56955,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-94-5.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56956,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56954\/revisions\/56956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}