Helping to raise PKD awareness is an important and sensitive topic for me, based on how I have seen this often fatal disease devastate many people’s lives. My sister-in-law’s father suffered from PKD and waited on a transplant list for several years without ever finding a match. It is believed that the stress of his poor quality of life at such a young age with four children, a wife, and a large extended family, was the cause of his heart attack at only 53 years. I now watch my nephews grow up only hearing stories of a great man and looking at photographs to see if they resemble him in any way, just as I grew up not knowing my own grandfather. Sadness is all around as it often is with death from any other disease. I share this story with the name of the late Bill Orfanakos in mind, as I work to help those afflicted by this disease.

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