05/06/2026
ARH NEWS RELEASE – Celebrating the gift of life
Tammy Hairston checks her mailbox every day hoping she’ll receive a letter from a stranger whose kindness saved her life.
“I don’t know who they are, but I’ve written to them a couple of times,” she said. “I haven’t heard back yet, but I hope I do one day. I’d really love to thank them.”
Hairston, a certified medical assistant at Beckley ARH Hospital’s Southern West Virginia Clinic, has long struggled with high blood pressure.
While living in Pittsburgh in 2014, however, her symptoms changed.
“I started having fatigue, was always thirsty and my legs would swell, especially at night,” she said. “Lab tests showed my creatinine numbers were high.”
After a biopsy of her kidneys ruled out cancer, her doctor told her the culprit, as she suspected, was her blood pressure.”
Newly prescribed medicine kept her numbers under control for a time, but when she moved home to Beckley in 2015, she said she struggled finding time to reestablish her healthcare.
“I worked at the Southern West Virginia Clinic before I moved, but when I came back I was initially working somewhere else and it took a long time to get back to the doctor,” she said. “I just didn’t keep up with my medicine like I should have.”
In 2019, with her initial symptoms worsening, Hairston finally made an appointment.
“The provider ran a lot of tests and my creatinine levels kept getting worse,” she said. “That’s when she told me I needed to see a nephrologist.”
At that point, Hairston’s kidney function (GFR) was in the 40s, a number that while low, was not critical.
“So, the nephrologist told me to stay on blood pressure medicine, drink water, cut back on processed foods and leave chocolate alone,” she said.
Recognizing the urgency of her situation, Hairston – a Pepsi and potato chip lover – did her best on a low-sodium diet.
“I love my sodium so that was hard,” she said. “Especially with my grandkids and kids here. It’s not easy to cut things out when the people around you are eating them.”
And though Hairston, who had returned to work by then at the Southern West Virginia Clinic, followed doctor’s orders, monthly visits showed her creatinine rising and her GFR falling.
“I felt tired all the time,” she said. “I was worn out. I’d come to work and be on my feet all day and then I didn’t have any energy at all.”
It was 2021 when Hairston’s nephrologist first mentioned the possibility of dialysis. In 2022, with her creatinine levels on the move and a kidney function of 15, the doctor said it was time.
“I cried,” Hairston said of learning the news. “When I got to the car my husband asked what was wrong and I just broke down.”
Over the next year, Hairston, by then on the national transplant waiting list, worked during the day and received dialysis at home at night.
“And I prayed,” she said. “I prayed day and night and night and day. I prayed that God would give me new kidneys.”
As she waited, she said she tried to keep fear from taking over.
“I would think how long am I going to be here on this Earth with my kids and my grandkids and my friends?’” she recalled. “It was scary, but I tried to keep a smile on my face and stay positive and just pray that the Lord would bless me.”
And He did just that on July 26, 2023.
Read the full article at https://www.arh.org/newsfeed/celebrating-the-gift-of-life
