08/01/2025
On this last day of July I had to make a post because it was one year ago this month that I started my kidney transplant journey. It started with traveling to St Louis University Hospital where I got a work up from head to toe ensuring my body had nothing else wrong so that I could be placed on the transplant list. I was told once I was on the list it could be 2-9 years before I got a donor offer. I was absolutely willing to wait my turn for that call. Once all my tests came back I was so relieved that nothing else was wrong that would prevent me from getting a transplant. All that was left was a final consult with the surgeon. That’s when everything changed. During that appointment I was told that unfortunately, due to the size of my kidneys, they would need to remove them both to make room for a new kidney. Of course, both procedures could not be preformed together. They would have to remove my kidneys and then wait at least 6 weeks before they could preform a transplant. This meant it would be more difficult to get an offer from the list because you never know when that call was coming so there was no way to schedule removal and then schedule the transplant. It was then that the surgeon told us my best case scenario was to look for a living donor so that they could schedule the two procedures back to back. So with some reluctance of sharing, what we felt like was more of a personal matter, we had a family meeting and my kids helped make the page in hopes of finding a donor that would match. Words can’t come close to describing how much love we felt from the amount of people that started praying for this miracle. Even more surprising was the amount of people that signed up to be the miracle I needed. Being that it general takes awhile to find a match I started PD dialysis the first week of November. Then to our surprise just a couple short weeks later we got a call that changed everything. I had a donor and he was a match. We had found my miracle! I ABSOLUTELY LOVE telling our “story”! Anytime someone asks how I’m doing and who my miracle is, with tears in my eyes, I tell them about the amazing person and family that started off as customers and are now a part of our family. I will be FOREVER GRATEFUL for Nick Woods and his family for saving my life! This month also marks our 6 month Kidney transplant anniversary!!! My youngest daughter, Haley, called him her hero…He’s absolutely the definition of a hero!! ❤️
For those of you wondering what polycystic kidney disease does to the kidneys and why mine had to be removed here is a photo of my kidneys removed.
