Valen on her way to surprise her kidney donor, Sally.

Awareness is a big part of my life: being aware of my health, how I am feeling, knowing that I am taking the best care of myself and being an educated patient, being mindful of others and understanding how I can help them along their journeys, and spreading awareness of PKD and organ donation.

While living with PKD is not something to celebrate, I find it important to celebrate milestones and the positives in our lives. We can’t change the fact that we have this disease, but we can choose our outlook and how we will use our lives to help others. As patients and caregivers of PKD, our stories can help raise awareness and hopefully help future generations not have to endure what we have endured.

Sept. 1st is PKD Awareness Day, a day to educate, inspire and provide hope. You can participate by wearing teal, sharing photos on social media, making a donation, getting involved in your local Chapter, and much more. Our voices are louder and stronger together, and can help raise awareness and move us toward a future without PKD. Learn more on how you can celebrate PKD Awareness Day.

I believe there is always an opportunity to raise PKD mindfulness. I do so daily with my license plate that reads END PKD. During hospital visits, I find myself educating medical staff about PKD. When meeting people for the first time, I am always proud to share my involvement in the PKD community and educate them on what PKD is. Last year on PKD Awareness Day, my family and I were on vacation. We decorated our car for the special occasion and I wound up being interviewed by CBS 8 News Now in Las Vegas. They aired an awesome PKD segment on the evening news.

Valen and Sally celebrating their 14th transplant anniversary together.

In honor of this year’s PKD Awareness Day, I am going to create a 30-day social media photo album with pictures from the surprise party I planned for my kidney donor, Sally. Last month, I flew home to Pennsylvania from California and surprised her on August 13th so we could celebrate our 14-year kidney transplant anniversary together. It was an extraordinary and intimate party at Sally’s house with me and my parents, my donor and her husband and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. My sister-in-law is an extremely talented photographer who captured all of the raw emotions and treasured moments from the event. I gave Sally 14 balloons, seven blue and seven green, to represent each year of life she has given me with the colors of Donate Life. The most powerful part of the evening was when we all went outside and Sally and I released the balloons simultaneously. As they floated towards the sky, we were all overcome with gratitude and awe of this beautiful life.

Valen and Sally embracing after releasing balloons.

The pictures from the party are stunning. I will share one each day in September on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to keep the momentum of PKD Awareness Day going and to raise awareness of organ donation. I hope you will follow along as I share priceless moments from our momentous celebration of life and love.

Where is the most interesting place or what is the most interesting way you’ve raised awareness? Please join us on Sept. 1st and help raise awareness of #PKDAwarenessDay.