join us by being creative and
writing HOPE on your hand- email it to
info@kennedyjoiner.com we will place it on the website and the upcoming
site HANDS FOR HOPE
Video
About Kennedy- interview with Kennedy and her mother Ginger Joiner-
telling Kennedy's story Starts Automatically:
BELOW IS INFORMATION ON KENNEDY-
To those of you who do not know my little girl Kennedy, you should know
that she is a trooper. She is an absolute angel sent from God to live
with me and give me reason to live. As you may know, my angel came to me
damaged and broken. She was born with her bladder on the outside of her
body. Although she has struggled since birth to live normal, she has
taught me what love is and how precious life can be. I owe her my life
and would gladly give mine up for her. Kennedy was born with bladder
exstrophy (her bladder was on the outside of her body). Her bladder is
the size of a small peach and is hard like a rock. The common person's
bladder is like a water balloon that stretches. Kennedy's bladder has
been wrapped in several pieces of her intestine to give it flexibility.
She lives in pain daily. She has endured 10 surgeries in 10 years and
faces another one in July or August of 2009. She has hope of receiving a
new bladder from new technology and medical breakthroughs. Please click
on the link at the top of this page to view Dr. Atala on the Oprah Show.
It is short and very informative.
In 2007, Kennedy was diagnosed with chronic renal failure, basically
meaning that her kidneys were shutting down. Her kidneys are not
growing because they work overtime trying to do the job the bladder can
not do. She takes 11 medications every day and is required to get a shot
every week. Kennedy needs a new kidney BUT she can not get one until she
has improvement with her bladder problem. Now she is on the list
and now she has HOPE!
Hurray huh? well, Kennedy is not a normal bladder patient. She has extensive damage to the muscles and she does not have a
urethra tube. Our first step is going to North Carolina to Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Tissue Research in hopes of receiving an autologous bladder graph.
Sound
expensive? Well it is, and she is with Georgia Medicaid so outside of Georgia and experimental
medicine, you can only imagine! but could I possibly say no? I would give it all away for her to live one normal day, a day with no medicine, no catheters, no
pain. O the things we take for granted people.
So for all of those wonderful people asking me about Kennedy. Here is the
update. Please do like you have promised to do and pray. Your prayers are appreciated.
A
donation account is set- please see
the "HOW CAN I HELP?" page. If anyone would like to help fund her surgeries, it would be appreciated and if nothing else, remember each night as you start to go to bed that God has this little girl in his hands. Hopefully she can inspire you to talk to
God. With a heavy heart I close.
Ginger, Kennedy's Mom
See Kennedy's Doctor at Wake Forest- Doctor Anthony Atala-
