My Kidney Search Has Become A Fight For My Heart And I Need The Broadcasting Industry To Help Me Find My One

I have written thousands of words about other people during my years in broadcasting. I have celebrated promotions, format launches, retirements, ratings victories and careers that deserved to be remembered. Since Joseph Collins and I began building On The Dial, that responsibility has become even more personal because we genuinely love what this publication has become. We love the conversations. We love digging into the history. We love celebrating the people who still believe radio matters. We love that people who have spent their lives behind microphones, programming stations, selling advertising, engineering transmitters and building this business have welcomed us into their world.

Today, I need to ask that world to step into mine.

This is difficult for me to write because I do not want On The Dial to become a publication about Steven Mills being sick. That is not why we built it. I want to be here writing about you for many years to come.

But to do that, I need to stay alive.

And right now, I need help.

In 2013, I was diagnosed with Stage 3B Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Cancer changes the way you understand time.

You stop assuming there will always be another summer, another Christmas, another birthday, another radio convention, another sermon, another morning when your family is irritating you because everybody is running late.

You start fighting for those ordinary moments.

I fought.

The cancer returned during that journey, and the treatment continued. Eventually, by the end of 2019, Hodgkin’s lymphoma was behind me.

I had survived.

Then came 2021.

Colon cancer.

Again.

Doctors removed roughly two and a half feet of my colon.

Again, I fought.

Again, I survived.

I became what everybody likes to call a two-time cancer survivor.

Those words sound victorious.

And they are.

But survival sometimes sends you a bill later.

Cancer treatment saved my life.

I want that understood.

I would not undo it.

But the chemotherapy and everything my body endured during those years took an enormous toll.

Eventually my kidneys began failing.

Then they failed completely.

Today I live with end-stage kidney failure.

Dialysis does the work my kidneys can no longer do.

Every day.

Not when I feel like it.

Not when the schedule is convenient.

Not when On The Dial is finished for the evening.

Every day.

Dialysis is not my cure.

Dialysis is what keeps me alive while I search for the cure.

That cure is a kidney transplant.

And this is where my story becomes unusually complicated.

I wish it were that simple.

I have had bone marrow transplantation as part of my medical journey. My transplant team has explained that those experiences left my immune system extraordinarily sensitized.

My body has developed antibodies against an enormous percentage of potential donors.

The number doctors use to measure this is called cPRA, or Calculated Panel Reactive Antibody.

Mine is:

99.9999 percent.

HRSA and the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network explain that cPRA estimates the percentage of donors with whom a transplant candidate would be immunologically incompatible. The higher the number, the fewer potentially compatible donors remain.

Read my number again.

99.9999 percent.

That means the potential compatible pool suggested by that calculation is approximately 0.0001 percent.

That is why I keep talking about finding my one.

I am blood type O positive as well, but blood type is only one piece of an incredibly complicated transplant puzzle. Someone can be healthy. Someone can genuinely want to save my life. Someone can appear promising.

And then the antibody testing can still say no.

That has happened.

People have stepped forward.

People have been tested.

We have experienced hope.

And disappointment.

Then we start searching again.

The math has changed the mission.

When compatibility is this difficult, reach matters.

Every share expands the pool.

Every morning-show mention expands the pool.

Every Facebook post expands the pool.

Every station newsletter expands the pool.

Every artist who shares it expands the pool.

Every broadcaster who texts it to somebody expands the pool.

Every person with a platform who says, I know somebody who needs a kidney, expands the pool.

I do not know where my donor lives.

I do not know their age.

I do not know whether they listen to Country, Hip-Hop, Christian radio, News Talk, Rock, Sports, AC or a morning show somewhere I’ve never heard.

I don’t know whether they work in radio at all.

I only know that I have not found them yet.

Friday, September 25, was a hard day.

A really hard day.

I received more medical news.

For a long time, I have talked about my kidneys as though this battle lived primarily in those two organs.

It doesn’t anymore.

I was told that the effects of my kidney failure are now affecting other organs and that the damage to my heart has become severe.

Now cardiology becomes another part of this journey.

That scared me.

There is no clever radio line to put after that.

No joke.

No dramatic tease into the next segment.

It scared me.

The National Kidney Foundation says heart disease is the leading cause of death among people with kidney failure, and the American Heart Association describes an extraordinarily close relationship between kidney failure and cardiovascular disease.

So when the doctors start talking about damage to my heart, I listen differently.

This is not theoretical anymore.

My body is telling me that waiting has consequences.

Please do not mistake any of this for surrender.

I am still laughing.

Still preaching.

Still writing.

Still arguing about radio formats.

Still checking ratings.

Still telling Joseph when I think a headline needs to hit harder.

Still believing On The Dial can become something important to this industry.

Still believing God has more work for me to do.

Still being a husband.

Still being a father.

Still dreaming about the things I want to see my daughter accomplish.

Still planning things I have absolutely no business planning considering everything happening around me.

That is who I am.

But faith does not mean pretending the situation is not serious.

It is serious.

And I need you.

Several weeks ago, creator Josh Liljenquist came to Garden City.

Before that day, I had never met him.

He showed up anyway.

He listened.

He hugged me.

He watched me demonstrate the dialysis equipment that keeps me alive.

Then he did something extraordinary.

He used his audience for somebody else.

Me.

Josh put my story in front of millions of people.

His original video allowed people around the country to see something that is difficult to explain with words alone — what daily life with complete kidney failure actually looks like.

Watch Josh Liljenquist’s first video about my kidney journey

That attention changed everything.

People shared.

People prayed.

People donated.

People began asking about testing.

Television stations called.

My search got bigger.

But we still have not found the kidney.

KAKE News sent Kate Devine to tell this story to Kansas.

Their report showed the dialysis process, Josh’s trip to Garden City and the search for the extraordinarily rare compatible donor who could save my life. The report also documented something that has become central to this entire campaign: money helps me survive the journey, but the kidney is what I ultimately need.

Watch the KAKE News story about my search for a living kidney donor

Please watch it.

Then share it.

Journalist Esther Dillard also gave me the space to explain what this has actually cost physically, emotionally and financially.

Her Race for a Kidney story documents the cancers, dialysis, transplant complications and the realities families live with when survival becomes a full-time expense.

Read Esther Dillard’s Race for a Kidney story

If you want to understand more than the headline, please read that.

Serious illness is expensive in ways people cannot imagine until they live it.

Dialysis supplies.

Medical deductibles.

Medications.

Transportation.

Housing that can safely accommodate home dialysis.

Appointments.

Travel.

Normal bills that do not stop arriving simply because your kidneys quit working.

My family has poured enormous resources into keeping me alive.

Josh established a GoFundMe to help carry some of that burden while we continue the donor search.

Support the GoFundMe organized by Joshua Liljenquist for my fight

If you can donate, thank you.

If you cannot, please keep reading.

Because money is only one way to help me.

I have spent much of my adult life in this business.

Radio programmer.

Air personality.

Operations Manager.

Music Director.

Corporate digital leader.

Publisher.

I’ve watched this industry do extraordinary things when one of our own needs help.

I’ve seen stations raise millions of dollars for St. Jude.

I’ve watched radio respond after tornadoes, floods, hurricanes and fires.

I’ve watched morning shows stop everything to help one family.

I’ve watched broadcasters use a microphone to turn strangers into neighbors.

Today, I am asking you to do that for me.

Not because I believe my life matters more than anyone else’s.

It doesn’t.

But because this is the microphone I have.

And right now I need to use it.

1. Consider being tested. HCA Midwest Health has a living-donor program through the Transplant Institute at Research Medical Center. You can begin with its health questionnaire. You are not promising anything simply by learning whether donation may be possible. HCA specifically notes that living donors can be family members, friends, coworkers or strangers.Patient: Steven Mills
   Date of Birth: December 23 1977
   HCA Midwest Health Living Donor Program
2. Share this story. Put it on your station page. Put it on Facebook. Send it to your staff. Mention it on your show. Send it to your church. Send it to your family group chat. Send it to the person who knows everybody. I don’t need everybody who sees this to qualify as my donor. I need everybody who sees this to help me reach the person who might.
3. Use your connections. Maybe your brother can help. Maybe your cousin knows somebody. Maybe you know an artist. Maybe you know an athlete. Maybe you know a television host, actor, celebrity, influencer, CEO, pastor or national radio personality with an enormous audience. Please send them this story. Ask them to share it. One famous person with one enormous platform could put this search in front of the person we have been unable to reach.
4. Help financially if you can. Medical care does not pause while we search. Dialysis does not pause. Bills do not pause. The GoFundMe Josh created is helping my family continue this fight while we look for the donor. Help Pastor Steven Fight for His Life
5. Pray. I mean that. If you are a person of faith, become one of our prayer warriors. Pray for my heart. Pray for my kidneys. Pray for my family. Pray for the transplant teams. Pray for the person who may someday read this and realize they are willing to be tested. And please pray that we reach that person before my body suffers more damage.

That does not mean you cannot save my life.

Please understand that.

Maybe your kidney cannot help me.

But your share might.

Maybe you cannot donate financially.

But your voice might.

Maybe you have 300 Facebook friends.

One of them may have 3,000.

One of those people may know somebody with three million followers.

And somewhere inside that chain could be the person whose immune markers line up with mine.

That is what keeps me pushing this story.

I do not need everyone.

I need my one.

But finding one may require reaching millions.

I still remember what it felt like when the microphone first became more than equipment to me.

Radio gave me a career.

It gave me friends.

It gave me stories.

It gave me people scattered across this country whose voices I recognize even if we have never sat in the same room.

It gave me an industry that can occasionally drive me absolutely insane and yet remains an industry I love deeply.

And now On The Dial has given Joseph and me something I am incredibly proud of.

We have watched it become a place where people come to read about radio, argue about radio, celebrate radio and occasionally remember why they fell in love with this ridiculous business in the first place.

I want to keep doing this.

I want On The Dial to be here years from now.

I want to be here years from now.

I want to write your retirement story.

I want to write about the station you finally get to program.

I want to write about the kid you hired on weekends who becomes a superstar.

I want to argue with you about whether your format flip makes any damn sense.

I want to still be annoying radio people years from now.

😂

But right now, staying here requires help.

I cannot shake that.

For months, I have said:

I need a kidney.

Friday made me understand the sentence differently.

The kidney is not simply about getting off dialysis someday.

The damage is spreading.

My heart is now involved.

The news I received Friday told me plainly that my body cannot simply wait forever while we hope somebody eventually appears.

So I am asking louder.

Not because I enjoy asking.

Because I need to.

That phrase has followed this journey.

For a long time, I wondered whether people saw me.

Not the pastor.

Not the radio guy.

Not the cancer survivor.

Not the publisher.

Me.

A husband who wants more time.

A father who wants to see the milestones ahead.

A man who has fought cancer twice and does not want the treatment that saved his life to become the thing that ultimately shortens it.

A patient connecting himself to dialysis because the alternative is not living.

A person looking for another person somewhere on this earth who may be able to give him more tomorrows.

Today I feel seen.

Josh helped with that.

KAKE helped.

Esther helped.

Other journalists helped.

Thousands of strangers helped.

Now I need the broadcasting industry to help me become found.

Maybe it is you.

Maybe it is your husband.

Your wife.

Your brother.

Your sister.

Your cousin.

Your coworker.

Your listener.

Your pastor.

Your morning-show guest.

Your favorite singer.

Somebody following your station on Facebook.

Somebody famous whose phone number happens to be sitting in your contacts.

I don’t know.

That is the frustrating part.

I DON’T KNOW WHERE MY ONE IS.

But broadcasting taught me something a long time ago.

One voice can travel an unbelievable distance when enough transmitters carry it.

So carry mine.

Please.

Share this story.

Share Josh’s video.

Share the KAKE report.

Share Esther’s story.

Send people to HCA.

Donate if you can.

Pray if you pray.

Make a call.

Send a text.

Tag somebody with a platform.

Ask somebody to get tested.

Do something.

Because somewhere out there is a kidney my body may accept.

And after Friday’s news, finding that person feels more urgent than it ever has before.

I have spent a lifetime believing in the power of broadcasting to connect people who otherwise never would have found each other.

Now I am asking that power to do something deeply personal.

HELP ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE FIND ME.

— Steven Mills
President and Publisher
On The Dial

Joshua Liljenquist GoFundMe Help Pastor Steven Fight for His Life

Watch Josh Liljenquist’s First Video About Steven

Watch The KAKE News Report On Stevens Kidney Donor Search

Read Esther Dillards Race For A Kidney Pastor Steven Mills Fight To Survive

Living Kidney Donor Information
HCA Midwest Health Living Donor Program
Patient Steven Mills
DOB December 23 1977

Begin With The HCA Midwest Health Living Donor Program

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