Dialysis Patient’s 8-Hour Home Treatment Fuels Urgent Living Kidney Donor Drive Backed By National Kidney Registry

Virginia Beach Production Director James Castro Seeks Living kidney Donor During Donor Awareness Month

USA: James Castro, a Virginia Beach production director who helps televise Norfolk Admirals and Old Dominion University games, is publicly searching for a living kidney donor as he waits for a transplant. Castro, who fell seriously ill in 2020 and now lives with kidney failure and type 2 diabetes, is using Donor Awareness Month to raise attention to the need for living donors and to share the realities of life on dialysis.

Castro endures dialysis every day, seven days a week, completing four cycles that take more than eight hours, plus an overnight at-home regimen that requires meticulous catheter care. That daily routine underpins why a living donor kidney transplant is central to his hopes for a return to normalcy; living-donor kidneys generally offer better survival outcomes and longer graft life than deceased-donor organs.

He is enrolled with the National kidney Registry’s micro-site program, which creates individual patient pages to explain needs, show photos, and encourage potential donors to get screened. The registry emphasizes thorough evaluation of living donors and works to secure optimal matches; it will transport kidneys across the country by car or airplane when needed to complete transplants.

Castro’s campaign is both personal and civic: he wants to find a donor and to increase awareness for the thousands of people awaiting living-donor transplants. Medical teams note living kidney transplants can last two to four decades in many cases. Those interested in screening should contact the National kidney Registry or their local transplant center for information on becoming a living kidney donor.

Video originally published on 2026-04-22 19:06:28