APRIL 30, 2026 | FREE
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EAST LONGMEADOW
Western Mass Wheelers brings the outdoors back to seniors A new nonprofit is rolling into Western Massachusetts this spring with a simple but powerful mission.
Local creatives promote works
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People of all ages had the opportunity to step into the various worlds of storytelling, and meet those who create them, at the Pleasant View Senior Center’s Artists and Authors Fair on April 23.
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LONGMEADOW
Select Board approves removal of six trees Construction of the new Longmeadow Middle School is calling for the removal of six mature trees and a resident is taking action in an attempt to prevent it.
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East Longmeadow woman donates kidney to husband By Peter Tuohy
ptuohy@thereminder.com
EAST LONGMEADOW — One East Longmeadow couple is not only now connected by love, but by a transplant, after a resident donated her kidney to help her husband fight Complement 3 Glomerulopathy, an extremely rare kidney disease. Rachel Morales has been with her husband, Julian Morales, for 20 years. This unexpected journey began when Julian had an appointment after work with his primary care physician to explain some symptoms he had been feeling in August 2024. He was advised to go to the emergency room, arriving with very high blood pressure and very low hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that assists in transporting oxygen throughout the body. Julian was going into kidney failure with severe fluid buildup. He needed three blood transfusions before being transported to Baystate Medical Center, spending eight days on emergency dialysis with four hour rounds each day. His kidneys were only functioning at 5% when he arrived and painful biopsies confirmed the C3G diagnosis. C3G only affects one in a million people and impedes how well the kidneys work. There is no cure but treatment can help slow it down and reduce symptoms. It can lay dormant for years until something tips the scale, which was a bad case of poison ivy for Julian, according to Rachel. He
Julian and Rachel Morales at Boston Medical Center. Reminder Publishing submitted photo
never had any kidney problems or a family history of them. He initially had over 60 pounds of fluid removed from his body, losing over 100 pounds over the whole journey. “Nobody even knows much about it, that’s how incredibly rare this disease is,” Rachel said. “It was heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking thinking the man that has pushed through so much and done so much in his life and has done so much for everybody, like he is the giver for everyone
else. He never asks for anything … he always has a positive outlook through everything, and I think that really took us as far as we did, because he has such a positive outlook on life. It leaves you speechless to think about how sick he was.” Julian continued hemodialysis, or in center dialysis, for three days a week and four hours each day after being released from the hospital. Rachel said he entered the transplant phase after learning his kidneys wouldn’t bounce back
to a functional level, and that a transplant would be his best bet at a “normal life.” His care was moved to Tufts Medical Center in Boston after finding a doctor interested in C3G, before being transferred to Boston Medical Center. He had over 90,000 people in front of him on the wait list and would have had to wait over 10 years for a transplant. He switched to peritoneal dialysis treatment at home during See DONOR on page 4
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