by Janee Bolden
December 4, 2025
Candice was recognized with Kind 1 diabetes at 17.
For greater than 20 years, Candice Davis has been a gradual presence inside Jay-Z’s rising empire. She began at Baseline Studios in 2002, the place she supported Roc Nation CEO Desiree Perez lengthy earlier than the corporate took its present form. When the 40/40 Membership opened in 2003, she transitioned to assist run that operation and stayed till the pandemic shut its doorways. In 2021, she joined Roc Nation’s workplace operations workforce full-time, bringing years of institutional data and loyalty together with her.
What many individuals didn’t know throughout that point was that her well being had been deteriorating for years. Candice was recognized with Kind 1 diabetes at 17.
“I went from a weight of about 160 kilos to 125 kilos inside a matter of like, two months,” she remembers. “I used to be urinating on a regular basis, continually thirsty… I had no concept what was occurring with me.”
When docs defined the lifelong therapy forward, she remembers considering, “I’m not doing that.”
Candice didn’t start repeatedly utilizing an insulin pump and Dexcom sensor till she was 32.
“I noticed a direct change; my hemoglobin had dropped all the way in which to an 8,” she tells BLACK ENTERPRISE. “I wished to kick myself for not having achieved it earlier.” However the years of injury have been already there.
“Diabetes just isn’t a recreation, it’s to not play with,” Candice warns. “It will critically, critically hurt your physique should you don’t management your ranges.”
Over time, Candice’s situation turned even extra sophisticated. She’s skilled numbness in her ft, issues together with her imaginative and prescient, ulcers, a number of damaged bones, and infections. Within the a long time since her preliminary prognosis, she’s endured greater than 25 surgical procedures. In 2022, issues took a flip for the more severe.
“My kidney physician instructed me, ‘Go to the hospital. Your creatinine is 3.9,’” Candice remembers. “By the point I received to the hospital, it was 5.9,” she says. After days of biopsies and exams, docs instructed her, “Your kidneys—there’s nothing to be achieved about them.” She started present process peritoneal dialysis that November, however the worst was but to come back.
In February 2023, Candice was hospitalized for 3 weeks after falling within the toilet and breaking her hip. On account of her kidney illness, Davis developed a brittle bone dysfunction often called renal osteodystrophy. Candice was discharged to a rehabilitation heart to relearn how you can stroll. It was there that Candice’s world shifted once more.
“They inform me that my husband died from a coronary heart assault that morning,” Davis says. “I had been with him for 20 years. He was my rock—the glue to our whole household.” She provides, “I haven’t grieved correctly as a result of I’m so busy being sick… I nonetheless don’t know what life appears to be like like with out him.”
After struggling trauma on high of trauma, final 12 months, Candice was positioned on the transplant donor listing, and he or she now desperately wants a brand new kidney to outlive. Via each blow, she holds onto function. “I really feel like I’m nonetheless imagined to be right here. I haven’t given up,” she tells BE. “I’m gonna struggle. I’ve at all times been a fighter.”
Inside Roc Nation, the individuals who’ve recognized Candice for 20 years didn’t hesitate once they discovered she wanted a kidney transplant. The corporate launched A Trigger for Candice, a marketing campaign designed to assist her discover a residing donor and educate the general public in regards to the nationwide kidney scarcity.
“Candice is a longtime and really beloved member of the family of Roc Nation,” says Dania Diaz, a consultant of Staff Roc, Roc Nation’s philanthropic arm. “She’s simply been an instrumental a part of our each day operations. She’s an unimaginable human being who’s exhibited unimaginable energy all through all of her well being challenges.”
As soon as the severity of her scenario turned clear, the corporate moved shortly. “I don’t assume it was a tough selection,” Diaz says. “We noticed that there was a dire want to boost consciousness. Each single second of the day issues.”
When Candice discovered about the marketing campaign, she struggled to carry again emotion. “It feels wonderful,” Candice says. “I at all times count on individuals to not care, and it’s wonderful once you discover individuals that really do.”
Candice’s scenario isn’t distinctive. In accordance with UNOS experiences, practically 90,000 individuals in america are ready for a kidney transplant, and 11 individuals die day-after-day ready for a kidney.
Diaz says even she hadn’t understood the size of the kidney disaster till strolling this path with Candice.
“I wasn’t even conscious that there was a scarcity,” Diaz admits. She additionally needs individuals to know that residing donation just isn’t the impossibility many think about.
“There’s so many individuals who’ve donated a kidney and are thriving immediately. I feel there may be this slight false impression that you just want each kidneys to outlive. However there are numerous tales of people that have been thriving with only one kidney or individuals born with one kidney who’re thriving.”
“It’s not so scary,” Diaz continues. “And you’ve got loads of energy to assist somebody in want. It is a second the place you may.”
Candice’s struggle isn’t occurring in a vacuum. Throughout the nation, Black households are carrying a disproportionate share of this burden. Black People make up simply 13% of the inhabitants, but they account for roughly a 3rd of all individuals residing with kidney failure — a staggering hole pushed by diabetes, hypertension, and long-standing inequities in care. Nationwide well being information reveals that about 1 in 5 Black adults resides with power kidney illness, usually with out realizing it till the injury is superior. For a lot of, the street to dialysis or transplant begins the identical approach Candice’s did: years of managing diabetes with out entry to the instruments, screenings, or constant assist which may have modified the result. Her story is private, however the disaster she represents is widespread.
Whereas Candice’s daughter volunteered to donate a kidney to her mom, she was dominated out as a result of she is pre-diabetic, and physicians had issues about their household’s medical historical past.
“They don’t often take from individuals with problems on either side of their household,” Candice explains.
Regardless of having an AB-positive blood kind that may permit her to obtain a transplant from donors of all sorts, Candice’s search is additional sophisticated as a result of she is listed as having what transplant groups name “100% antibodies.”
“I’ve to search out someone who doesn’t have any of the identical antibodies that I’ve,” Davis explains. “In any other case, I’ll struggle off this kidney, and I’ll reject it.”
Candice’s goals are easy: to stay lengthy sufficient to witness the milestones her husband gained’t.
“I hope for lots of issues—principally to do with my youngsters. I wish to see all of them have youngsters. I wish to see them get married. I simply need to have the ability to be there as a result of they not have their dad, and that was an enormous loss of their lives. Regardless that they’re all grown, I don’t need them to be orphans. I simply wish to be there for them firstly.”
She additionally needs to discover a technique to attain again. “I might love to start out a assist group and assist different individuals—give them assets,” she stated. “If somebody cared sufficient to assist me, I’ve no selection however to care sufficient for the opposite individuals nonetheless on this scenario.”
Anybody moved by Candice’s story can start the screening course of at acauseforcandice.com. The marketing campaign hyperlinks on to the Robert Wooden Johnson Transplant Heart, the place potential donors can fill out the shape and point out they want to be screened on behalf of Candice Davis.
The Paper Aircraft retailer (252 Lafayette Avenue, New York) can be serving to increase consciousness in-store by sharing Candice’s story and distributing details about changing into a residing kidney donor.
“We’re doing all that we will,” Diaz emphasizes, and we’re hoping that by simply elevating consciousness, we will discover a match for Candice. And if it’s not a match for Candice, perhaps it’s a match for someone else. All of us have the capability to assist each other and to present life to somebody in want.”
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