The Kidney Foundation wants to Warm the Sole of each of the 3,300 dialysis patients in B.C. and the Yukon.
There are 215 people in Prince George who received a pair of Warm the Sole socks to help keep their typically chilly feet warmer.
Diane and Paul Duperron, who are longtime volunteers for the local branch of the Kidney Foundation, are two of the volunteers who have been visiting patients on dialysis this week to gift the socks to those experiencing kidney failure.
Farrah Campbell, 41, moved to Prince George from Tumbler Ridge a year ago to get better care and said the support she gets here makes all the difference.
Campbell said it's not easy being a dialysis patient and explained how she used to cover up the bumps, bruises and needle marks on her arms from dialyzing for four hours three times a week for fear of what people would think.
She said she doesn't hide those marks anymore.
"It's part of who I am," Campbell said, as she dialyzed Saturday morning. "I'm not going to hide it anymore."
When she's out in public she's been approached by those who don't know about her invisible ailment and they assume she's got a drug addiction.
"I don't look sick, but I am sick," Campbell said about having the disease they call the silent killer. "And I'm not a drug addict. I'm on dialysis because my kidney function is only at four per cent."
She was diagnosed in 2002 with a form of kidney failure that was a result of having chronic urinary tract infections in her youth. She has scar tissue on both kidneys. In 2002 when she was first diagnosed her kidney function was at 50 per cent.
Currently Campbell is not on the donor list because her health is suffering. She hopes that will change quickly and she can be put back on the list soon.
Campbell would like people to consider becoming living kidney donors and alternatively be sure to register as an organ donor at www.kidney.bc.ca.
The Warm the Sole campaign offers an opportunity to purchase the socks in support of the Kidney Foundation through the website. Each pair is $15, shipping included.
The campaign was made possible through a grant from the Aviva Community Funds Small Ideas program and the Kidney Foundation was awarded $10,000. Your City Sports, the company that manufactures the socks, is donating an equal number of socks to the homeless in the lower mainland.
