In June 1999 at an extended family getaway, my sister Lisa—then 35, athletic, the youngest of five girls—showed up in a state of poor health and exhaustion. Her bouncy step was a mere shuffle, and she complained that her muscles had ached for months, ever since she contracted a virus she couldn’t shake. At our mom’s insistence, I drove her to a local medical center, where blood and urine tests delivered shocking results. Lisa was in acute renal failure, her kidneys operating at only 7 percent.
She qualified for placement on the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) list immediately after returning home and starting dialysis. A two-port catheter was inserted into her chest, one to remove blood from her body for cleansing, the other to re-feed the cleansed blood back into her system. That became Lisa’s new normal, reporting for dialysis every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m.
“I really feel lucky,” she told me back then. “I can drive myself to and from dialysis, continue to teach, and still work out.”
Lucky? God love her. That catheter remained part of her life for 11 months. So did the low-sodium, low-potassium, low-protein, and ridiculously low-liquid diet prescribed for patients undergoing dialysis. As the months crept on, her immune system weakened, and she developed several infections that required medications with harrowing side effects, like extreme dizziness and fatigue.
Questions and concerns plagued the whole family. How do we get this strange party—this transplant journey—started? Could one of Lisa’s four sisters serve as a living donor? Where would the transplant take place? What do you mean the lab lost one of the sisters’ bloodwork? Why did so many books on transplant focus on technical issues? Or ethics? We just wanted to see Lisa well and living a quality life once again.
Fast forward to today, when all is well because Lisa did receive a kidney from our sister Tina at the University of Michigan’s Transplant Center in Ann Arbor. The procedure took place in June 2000, and both sisters recovered well and remain healthy still.
In the years following the transplant, I felt frequent tugs to write about our family’s transplant journey—beyond just a summary and a happy ending. The idea intrigued me even more after attending my first Transplant Games of America in Orlando in 2002. This multi-day sports festival celebrated the transplant community while generating funds and building awareness. Snippets of people’s stories filled my heart, especially as I walked through the Hall of Quilts, where candles flickered and quilt squares represented the lives of donors no longer living.
After attending a few more Transplant Games—and working for a stretch at the Georgia Transplant Foundation—I felt almost called to write about organ donation and transplant. For my master’s project, I created a proposal for a book of individual stories about people’s unique experiences along the road toward donation. Sadly, writing the book itself got sidelined. As often happens, life got in the way.
I didn’t think much about that project again until fall 2021, when my daughter-in-law Lauren called to say her sister Kristen needed a kidney transplant. She wondered if she and her mom Jane could hear more about our family’s transplant story, ask questions, and make some sense out of all the unknowns. While Kristen’s story of renal failure differed from Lisa’s, the bottom lines remained the same: Kristen’s family wanted to get this strange party underway. They wanted to see her well and living a quality life once again.
They got their wish that December, when Kristen received a kidney from Lauren at the AdventHealth Transplant Institute in Orlando. Another happy ending. Hearts filled again.
Jane reminded me recently of a conversation we had back then, when she asked how our mother handled having two daughters undergo surgery at once. She told me, “I expected you to say, with the help of faith and prayer. But you didn’t. You looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Not well.’”
I opened my mouth to apologize for being so blunt, but Jane stopped me. “My sisters and I got a bit of a chuckle out of that. But it was exactly what I needed to hear.”
The truth is, life is hard and holds no guarantees. We don’t always know why things happen, and we certainly can’t control outcomes. But we can cling tightly to faith and hope. And we can advocate for the things we believe in.
That said, I’d like to share one last thing, a quote credited to Maxie Scully, for anyone who might be ready or needing to hear it: “Don’t take your organs to heaven; heaven knows, we need them here.”
You can register to be an organ, eye, and tissue donor by visiting the National Donate Life Registry. Google it. And thanks for your consideration.
Cheers ~ J
Love (and giggled at) the kidney drawings. Loved the story even more!