'I just want to be here for my daughters': Indy man needs a kidney. Could he have yours?

Indianapolis Star

03-07-2025

He's a blue-collar single parent with two young daughters. June is four, and Luna is three.
As a truck driver, Zachary Ryan Short, 33, works 50-60 hours a week for D Transport. His daily routine often looks like waking up at 4:30 a.m. and taking the girls to daycare before heading out on the road for his job at 6 a.m.
Short is on dialysis and is in Stage 5 kidney failure. He was diagnosed in 2021 and has been on dialysis for three years. He has Alport syndrome, which is a genetic disorder characterized by progressive kidney disease, often leading to kidney failure. It can also cause hearing loss and eye abnormalities.
"I've maxed out my life insurance policy just for them," Short told IndyStar. "It's hard to explain to a 3- and 4-year-old that daddy might not be here anymore, and they're going to have to go live with my older brother Josh. It takes a mental toll on you. I can't just play with them in the park because I'm so tired."
His body is shutting down, and if he doesn't get a kidney transplant in the next few months, he's preparing to tell his girls goodbye. He's had so many people try to get tested, but he'd always end up back at square one because they weren't a good match.
Short has an A positive blood type and can take a kidney from any donor who has Type A or O blood and has a transplant coordinator through IU Health.
"Please consider getting tested to see if you are a match," Ryan asks people in an online post. "This is my last attempt to make it for my children. The surgery will be 100% paid for, and my family will be forever grateful. I just want to be here for my daughters."
Dr. Asif A. Sharfuddin specializes in Nephrology & Kidney Diseases for IU Health Physicians Kidney Health and is the medical director of kidney transplants. He said the need for living kidney donation does not meet the demand.
There are 90,000 people waiting for a kidney transplant in the U.S., and only 24,000 who receive them. Only about 6,000 transplant recipients have kidneys from living donors. The others are from deceased donor kidneys.
If a patient doesn't have a living kidney donor, they'll wait at least 3-5 years. By remaining in kidney failure, recipients can get sicker over time, and timing is very important, which is why living donors matter.
'People think it starts with being a match, but the process starts even before that," Sharfuddin told IndyStar. "There are steps ahead of time before we even get to the match."
He said the process starts with the donor contacting the transplant center. For IU Health, potential donors can fill out a form online that will ask who they'd want to give their kidney to, along with asking for medical history. This is to determine if the potential donor qualifies.
The forms are reviewed by the coordinators, and if someone can move along in the process, they'll get a phone call.
"Next steps are to get their consent for donor testing," Sharfuddin said. "Donors never have to pay anything out of pocket. Everything will be on the recipient's medical bill."
For IU Health, a potential donor can go to a local lab for blood type testing to see if they're compatible with a recipient. Tissue type testing needs to be done, too, and a kit will be sent to the potential donor for them to get done at a local lab.
"And let's say the results come back, and they might not be a match for the recipient. Well, we have the Kidney Paired Exchange to see if they can donate to someone else in the country who could use their kidney," Sharfuddin said. "But if they are a match, it is required that we evaluate medical history to make sure there are no hidden medical conditions."
He said they'll request records from a potential donor's primary care physician, which can save some time if they've been doing routine care and checkups. Blood work is required as well as a urine test and X-ray. Other testing will be required based on age, height and weight.
Potential donors undergo a psychological evaluation throughout the process to make sure they understand every step of the process and have support.
'After that, they do have to come in to see me or my partners for an evaluation,' Sharfuddin said. "We can do testing first and consultation later too, but we will discuss anything that came up in their testing and go over their results."
Sharfuddin said they then conduct a CT of a potential donor's abdomen to see the size of the kidney, the arteries and veins, and make sure surgery would be appropriate for removal. They might also bring in other specialists to make sure kidney stones aren't present, or that any benign spots are something to worry about in the future for the recipient.
Before the surgery is scheduled, the donor and recipient would have met with surgeons before.
The entire procedure takes almost 3 hours to do, but once donors start waking up, they're kept overnight to be watched and make sure they can walk. Sharfuddin said they can usually go home by the next day, with follow-ups check-in on their health.
"And if a donor ever had a problem in the future where they needed a kidney themselves, they have priority on the waiting list," Sharfuddin said. 'They did this gracious act years before, so of course, they shouldn't have to wait years for a kidney, and that's built into our systems around the country. Luckily, we don't have to use it often because that chance is very low."