Jorden A.

In 2022, at the age of 24, Jorden Albright-Henighan was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. It was later confirmed by renal biopsy to be APOL-1 FSGS. Before this, he had shown no signs of this illness throughout his life and had no reason to presume that anything may be going on. That was until his younger brother, Joshua, was at their aunt’s house, who had just donated a kidney. He decided to fool around with her blood pressure machine, and from that day forward, their lives changed. After Jorden’s brother was diagnosed, it took months for them to begin to navigate this new normal.

A huge part of this was played by their mother, Jaime, who found organizations such as Nephcure, whose sole purpose was to bring communities of patients and their families together—as well as to spread information on all the things that they knew nothing about. For months, Jorden and his family would attend events and support Joshua in sharing his story and focusing on managing his health, with no idea that he too had the same disease.

Jorden is now 25 years old, doing well, and has decided to take a more active role in advocating for his own health and the health of others who do not have the same support system that he says his family is so lucky to have.

He recently accepted a volunteer role as the Community Leader of Atlanta with Nephcure, in addition to his profession as a Commercial Real Estate Associate at Rise Property Group. He intends to utilize his professional network to help Nephcure continue making an impact throughout the city of Atlanta by raising awareness on the topic of rare diseases and raising funds to find a cure.