Jessica Hogan is one of many people waiting for a transplant. Thousands of people wait on transplant lists hoping to receive organs to improve and save their lives.
“I am in end stage renal failure as a result of chronic kidney disease or CKD. I have type 1 diabetes since I was 11 years old and this caused my kidneys to fail slowly,” said Jessica Hogan. “I went into full kidney failure in December 2021 right after Christmas and started emergency dialysis on Feb. 1. I now do at home peritoneal dialysis on a cycler machine which is keeping me alive until I receive my organs.”
According to the Health Resources and Services Administration website and organdonor.gov 105,732 men, woman and children are on the transplant waiting list and 17 of them die each day waiting for a transplant. Every donor can save eight lives and enhance 75 more. Over 40,000 transplants were performed in 2021 and every 9 minutes another person is added to the transplant list.
Corneas, skin, bone, cartilage, tendons, heart valves, blood stem cells, heart, lungs, kidney and lungs all can be donated.
Pennsylvania drivers can designate being an organ donor on their license.
Hogan was put on the transplant list on April 21, 2022, and will receive a kidney/pancreas transplant and may only get a kidney transplant if it comes up sooner. The typical wait time for a kidney/pancreas to become available is 1 to 3 years.
She will receive her new organs at the University of Pennsylvania Transplant Center in Philadelphia. She will remain in Philadelphia for 1 to 3 months post-transplant for after care.
“Jessica has great intelligence and it manifests especially in her curiosity and passion for learning, her quirky humor, her emotional intelligence, warmth and her resilience, She has had to face some and still faces some incredible difficulties in her life but she is a strong and willful person,” said Jessica’s sister, Shawna Hogan.
When Jessica feels up to it, she loves to bake, especially bread. She also likes to read and tries to do yoga to relax and stretch. When her health was better, she enjoyed traveling.
She has three cats Evie, Finely and Magi.
Jessica and Shawna are the daughters of the late Debbie Rose Levine and the granddaughters of Peg and Fred Rose.
“Organ donation is literally the gift of life to people like me,” said Jessica Hogan. “Our lives become our own again and we can live a full, happy life for many years after facing near death. It is the most selfless act and something for which I will be eternally grateful when it happens. I hope so much that once people hear my story, they are inspired to become organ doners. I can’t wait to travel, visit family and friends who are further away and to be able to have a new start and fully participate in life. There is always hope in my heart.”
Shawna Hogan has set up a GoFundMe account to offset expenses. The goal is to raise $30,000.
To donate, visit the GoFundMe site and search for Jessica Hogan.
Hogan will incur expenses after the transplant. The expenses will include housing for her home in Clarks Summit as well in Philadelphia for after care. medical co pays and the balance of the surgery itself after insurance pays their part, adaptive equipment for my home for my recovery and day to day expenses until she can return to work. She will also need nursing care and medication co pays as well.
“I would encourage to give organ donation a lot more thought and try to address the abstractness 0f a strangers need by looking into transplant success stories. I believe in putting faces and names and real life saving and life changing stories to the general idea can only make people understand that this simple decision and act is in face a heroic final gift to the humanity that we are all an interconnected part of and one big way to live on,” said Shawna Hogan.
