Each night for the last two years, Antonio Calderon has been connecting a tube that was surgically implanted in his body to his at-home dialysis machine.

The process takes nine hours and helps him flush out his kidneys. He’s hoping a kidney donor that matches his blood type could help put an end to the long process.

“It would be amazing to not have this tube in my belly and not to have all this equipment that I have to use all the time,” Calderon said.

Calderon was diagnosed with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis, a kidney disease nearly a decade ago, but in the last two years, his condition worsened forcing him to be on daily dialysis and on the long kidney transplant waitlist.

“If I’m out with friends and I have work the next day, I have to make sure I’m home with enough time to prep and disconnect in the morning and go through the nine hours. It’s a real bummer, but it’s keeping me alive,” Calderon said.

It could take nearly a decade for Calderon to find a match because of his O positive blood type. Patients with O positive blood types have the longest wait time when it comes to waiting for a transplant because the donor must have the same blood type to be a match, according to Kidney.org.

That’s why Calderon’s friends such as Ilya Polyakov decided he had to find a faster way to help his friend get well. Polyakov managed to raise more than $5,000 to create a large billboard ad asking potential donors to call or email in hopes of finding a match. 

“I felt very powerless seeing him struggle with this and being unable to do anything. I tried to be a donor and was unsuccessful and so it really came down to this question of like, ‘What can we do to help fix this problem?” Polyakov said.

Calderon said the amount of support from people throughout the country and his friends has been overwhelming.

“It’s incredible, it’s something, if not for getting a kidney donated I hope that everyone could have their friends band together and do something so meaningful like this,” Calderon said.

So far, the billboard has connected Calderon with dozens of donors hoping to help. It will be a long screening process, but Calderon is hoping that at least one person will be his match.

Calderon is asking anyone who would like to be a donor to email AntonioNeedsAKidney@gmail.com or call 424-239-9006.