Lisa Needs a Kidney: Family takes donation request on the road

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Lisa San Miguel is not sitting idle while waiting on the transplant list for a new kidney. Her family and friends have taken her message on the road, literally.

The 39-year-old is in a waiting game. When she was in her 20s, she had kidney failure.

"My mom was able to donate a kidney to me at that time and had the transplant in November 2004," said Lisa.

"There wasn't even a second a thought.. that's what you do when you're a parent, a mother," said Sarah Escobedo.

For 11 years after that transplant, Lisa was fine until she got sick again.

"That's when I came down with valley fever and then two years after that, the kidney function started to slowly decline. When I was told I had to go back on dialysis a second time."

She had to undergo dialysis three days a week. Each session takes over three hours.

"The waiting list has hundreds of thousands of people on it waiting for an organ, in my case a kidney. The wait time may be two to five years from what I've been told. Obviously, there is no guarantee," said Lisa.

After she felt comfortable enough to start sharing her story and asking for help, her husband had an idea: why not ask for a kidney from perfect strangers?

"My husband actually decided to cut some decals -- and it started with just our cars, my car and his car and then it was like a domino effect," she said.

"We have 30 cars out there in the streets -- from the west valley to east valley -- pretty much anywhere," said Daniel San Miguel.

"I've seen them through the rearview mirrors taking pictures," said Sarah.

The family calls themselves the kidney crew and the idea is working.

"The people that have reached out to me, I don't even know them, but yet they've been so generous and so kind and so willing to say hey, I have two healthy kidneys and you can have one. No questions asked. They're not looking for anything else out of it, just to help another human being," said Lisa.

Unfortunately, nobody that's come forward is a match yet, but Lisa and her family say just the thought that someone is willing to give so much to a complete stranger has been overwhelming. They also say you never know who might see one of the cars and be the match they've been praying for.

Lisa's Kidney Journey
To be considered as a living donor:
www.lisaskidneyjourney.com