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"On June 15th, I got a phone call from one of my coordinators and she asked me, 'How would I like to get off that machine?'" Sanalitro wrote on Instagram, accompanying a pic of her with her donor. "[She meant] my dialysis machine. The phone call I've been waiting for for two years. It was finally here. I was going to get a kidney."
Sanalitro was diagnosed with Stage 5 kidney failure at age 19 and went on dialysis for nearly three months until she got a transplant. At 26-years-old, for no reason known to her doctors, Sanalitro again went into kidney failure.
On Jan. 22, Sanalitro brought homemade signs to the Islanders game against the Toronto Maple Leafs at UBS Arena. One read, "I need a hero, kidney donor needed! Blood type A or O, positive or negative." On the front of another, she wrote, "Calling all hockey fans! I need a Kidney! Kidney! Kidney!" She also brought her signs to the Jan. 27 game against the Los Angeles Kings, the Jan. 30 game against the Minnesota Wild and the Feb. 4 game against the Seattle Kraken.
Many people learned of Sanalitro's story, emailing her and donating to her GoFundMe. Sanalitro said she's had three potential donors not work out in the past, so to finally find one and get another chance at life is "overwhelming" and "amazing."
"The amount of emotions going through me are unexplainable," she said.
Sanalitro is scheduled for her second kidney transplant on July 12.
