Ballard High grad turns to crowdfunding for post-kidney transplant care costs

By Joe Veyera

Born and raised in Ballard, and a graduate of Ballard High School, Charda Hastings has faced numerous health obstacles throughout her life.

On dialysis for the past 10 years with polycystic kidney and liver disease, Hastings now needs kidney transplant, and is trying to raise $9,000 to cover post-surgery care.

The hereditary condition claimed the lives of her grandmother in the early 1970s, and later her mother, who passed away when Charda was 22. Hastings also suffers from fibromyalgia, which has left her in chronic pain since 1992, and a near fatal staph infection cost her her lower left leg and foot and nearly all of her fingers.

According to Hastings, the University of Washington Medical Center requires that she have a caregiver 24 hours a day for three weeks after the surgery, at a rate of $25 per hour, and that MediCare will not cover those costs.

“Asking for help is not who I am,” Hastings wrote on her crowdfunding page. “I was raised to work and take care of myself. But this is bigger than me and I need help if I want to live. AND I WANT TO LIVE.”

If you’d like to learn more about Hastings’s crowdfunding effort, or would like to make a donation, visit her GoFundMe page here. At the time of this post, the campaign had raised $910.