Mom Paints Car in Search of Kidney Donor to Save Daughter's Life
Having exhausted the options of family and friends about three years back, Karol Franks had to get creative in spreading the word about her search for a kidney donor for her daughter, Jenna Franks.
Adding to her typical outreach strategies — using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Craigslist — the Pasadena, Calif. mother recently painted a message on the back window of both her husband’s and her son’s SUV. “Daughter needs Kidney Type O,” Karol wrote on her husband’s vehicle, adding an email address for Jenna, who is on the National Waiting List for a kidney transplant and looking at a 10-year wait for a deceased donor.
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“It seems like everytime we get on the freeway we get responses from people,” Karol told Today.com. But it wasn’t until a thoughtful stranger, Tatum Bateman, tweeted out a photo of their car last Sunday that things really took off — leading to the image being re-tweeted more than 9,100 times and prompting 25 people to get tested in hopes of donating a kidney to Jenna. “This honestly need to go viral,” she wrote on Twitter, sharing a picture of one of the cars driving en route to a baptism in Santa Monica.
Tatum Bateman (left) recently met Jenna Franks in person (Photo: NBC4).
“I had no idea that it would actually go viral,” Bateman tells Yahoo Parenting. “It’s so cool. Social media used for the right way can really work and do something that really matters.” Karol couldn’t agree more. “It’s completely gratifying to see the response,” the mother tells Yahoo Parenting. “We have gotten emails from people willing to test, and others sending prayers and messages of support. It is heartwarming to hear from other moms who say they would do they same thing if it were one of their kids.”
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Karol Franks (Photo: NBC4)
Jenna, though, admitted that she wasn’t into the idea at first. “When mom suggested that we put the information on the back of the car I didn’t really think anything would come of it,” she told NBC News. She has, after all, been waiting and hoping for a long time now.
Diagnosed with kidney failure at just 14, she endured three years of dialysis before she got her first kidney transplant at age 20. Seven years after the transplant, her body rejected the organ and for the past two years, the 29-year-old has been on dialysis to survive. “My life pretty much revolves around my illness,” she told NBC.
As Karol explains to Yahoo Parenting, “Jenna is particularly difficult to match, as she has high antibodies and would reject a kidney easily. This is why we need to test a greater pool of people. Hopefully she gets lucky!”
Jenna Franks receiving dialysis (Photo: Karol Franks)
If the family doesn’t find Jenna a match through this viral call-to-action, Karol says, “There are paired-donation programs, where a person with a willing but non-matching donor enters a swap program. Or I might just parachute out of a plane holding a banner. That’s a joke.” But not entirely. “When it’s your child, adult or not, you won’t stop looking for an answer,” she says. “Life is a rollercoaster, and we must hold on tight and try to enjoy the ups and get through the downs.”
(Photo: Karol Franks)
How do they get through those low points? “Sometimes the fear comes up and taps me on the shoulder,” Karol says. “And I just say ‘Not now.’"
Still she has admitted that the experience has been grueling over the years. “It’s my daughter, it’s my baby, so I want her life to be easy,” Karol said in a YouTube video that the family created in 2012, “Are you my type?” when Jenna’s second kidney search began. “I wish she didn’t have to deal with this but she does. As much as we can support her, we will. We’ll do whatever we can.”
(Top photo: Facebook/Karol Franks)
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