Coppell Chronicle Vol. 1, No. 38
Coppell Chronicle Vol. 1, No. 38
Brother, Can You Spare a Kidney? • Coppell ISD Faces Stiff Competition • City to Launch New Billing Site • Sleepy Corner Will Get Makeover
Hello from the other side of that Adele special on CBS. I’m sending this week’s edition to everybody on my mailing list because the first article is too important to put behind a paywall, and because my partners at Substack just introduced a new feature that allows writers to put only a portion of a newsletter behind a paywall. Let’s see if it works.
Brother, Can You Spare a Kidney?
Coppell residents Aabhas and Savita are living every parent’s worst nightmare. Their 14-year-old son, Sunchee, needs a new kidney.
Sunchee was diagnosed with end stage kidney disease in May. If the family can’t find a donor, dialysis might keep him alive for another five to seven years, Aabhas told me. Even with a successful donation, Sunchee would likely need another kidney 15 years down the line.
“We are hopeful that technology improves in the next 15 years,” said Aabhas, who maintains a blog called Hope for Sunchee. “Just before this news hit us, I did not know anything about kidneys. And now I know all the research.”
The donor must be a non-smoker with type O blood who is younger than 45, due to Sunchee’s age; such a young recipient needs a relatively young kidney. Both of his parents are too old to donate one of theirs.
Sunchee, who is a student at the Coppell High School Ninth-Grade Center, was always a typical kid who appeared perfectly healthy until this past spring.
“It’s a genetic condition that’s very good at hiding itself,” his dad said.
When Aabhas got some unusual readings while taking Savita’s blood pressure, he decided to test the device on Sunchee. The off-the-charts results were the first sign that something was wrong. Another early symptom was Sunchee drinking an abnormal amount of water, and then producing a correspondingly abnormal amount of urine.
Even if you aren’t a match for Sunchee, you should consider becoming a kidney donor period, if your age and stage make it possible. According to the Kidney Fund, nearly 100,000 people are waiting for a transplant. That’s supposedly longer than the waiting lists for all other organs combined.
Coppell ISD Faces Stiff Competition
I get genuinely excited whenever the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees receives a report from demographer Bob Templeton, because I’m a big nerd and because he is a fount of interesting information.
His latest report to the board happened on Monday, and these were what Templeton called the key takeaways:
Coppell ISD will continue to experience enrollment growth due to COVID bounce back, the strength of the local economy, and the regional housing market.
The district has approximately 80 lots available to build on, and ground work is underway on 74 other lots.
The district can expect an increase of approximately 570 students during the next five years.
By fall 2030, the district is projected to enroll 13,785 students, which would be a nearly 5 percent increase from the current enrollment of 13,154.
Here are some statistics from his report that should interest Coppell ISD residents whose only connection to the district is being taxpayers: