Four days after Katie was born, she was adopted by Marsha and her husband, Pat. The family lived a happy life in Patton, Pa., with Katie eventually moving to Bedford, Pa. to start her own family.
Marsha was diagnosed with diabetes and hypertension, which led to end stage renal disease. With her kidney health declining, she began dialysis three times a week. One day at her local dialysis center, her coordinator shared with her an option that would change her life.
“My coordinator mentioned to me that I could be a good candidate for a transplant, which I had never considered,” Marsha says. “Katie caught on to that and immediately offered to start the testing process to become my living donor.”
“Watching my mom go through dialysis was the worst thing in the entire world,” Katie says. “I would not wish that upon anyone. She was just surviving. She would sit through dialysis for most of the day and would still show up to my son’s baseball games.”
The Path to Living-Donor Kidney Transplant at UPMC
When deciding on a transplant program, UPMC was Marsha and Katie’s top choice.
“Not only was UPMC the closest transplant center to us, but I have received care at UPMC previously,” Marsha says. “It was a no brainer.”
They also decided to travel to UPMC for care after being referred by a friend’s daughter who donated a kidney to her father with Amit Tevar, MD, as their surgeon.
“Our friend’s son is the same grade as my son, so I was able to ask her about the whole transplant process,” Katie says. “We weren’t nervous at all about our decision to move forward with a transplant at UPMC.”
A Perfect Match
Katie and Marsha traveled two hours to UPMC in Pittsburgh for their living-donor kidney transplant evaluations. A few weeks later, right before Christmas, Katie received the phone call she had been waiting for.
“My transplant coordinator called me and just said ‘You’re going to give your mom a kidney,’” Katie says. “It was such a surreal experience and the best gift. We joked about how crazy it would be if I could be the one to donate my kidney to her, but we were still surprised and excited to find out I was a candidate.”
A few weeks later, Katie and Marsha traveled back to Pittsburgh for the transplant on January 27, 2023, with Amit Tevar, MD, as their surgeon. Marsha’s best friend, Cathy, who is a nurse, traveled to Pittsburgh with them and served as Marsha’s care partner.
“I was so lucky to have Cathy as my care partner, she made a world of a difference,” Marsha says. “Having someone who is willing to advocate for you when you might not be able to advocate for yourself is super important.”
Marsha’s new kidney started to work right away. After the surgery, Katie and Marsha stayed as active as possible by going on walks around the hospital.
“There was not a single person at UPMC that was less than five stars, everyone from the nurses down to the environmental services and food service staff,” Katie says. “Every single one of them was so attentive.”
Katie, Marsha, and their family and care partners stayed at Family House in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood in the weeks following their living-donor kidney transplant. Family House offers convenient and affordable lodging for patients and care partners who travel to Pittsburgh for health care.
Life After Living Donation
Recently, in March 2024, Katie and Marsha traveled to Walt Disney World with their family.
“The whole time she was on dialysis, I would say ‘You have to get better because I’m not going to take Lily to Disney World to meet all the princesses without you,’” Katie says. “She’s finally able to travel and do all these things that she was not able to while on dialysis. There’s no fear anymore.”
Now, the mother-daughter pair sees each other often, as they live only an hour away from each other. Katie is involved in her children’s school’s programs and Downtown Bedford Inc. Marsha is active in her church and helps run its basket auctions.
When it comes to living donation, the pair says to “just do it.”
“I tell anyone who will listen that it is not scary to become a living donor,” Katie says.
Approximately 100,000 Americans are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. By becoming a living-kidney donor, you can help someone in need of a transplant receive a kidney sooner and avoid transplant waitlist times of one to four years. Most kidney donors return to a full and active life within months following living-donor kidney surgery.
Compared to deceased-donor transplants, recipients of living-donor kidneys have better outcomes because surgeons transplant the kidney immediately after removing it from the donor. This improves the transplanted organs short and long-term function. A kidney from a deceased-donor may need to be stored for many hours before it can be transplanted, and it may take a few days to function properly.
“It's exciting to see my mom start living again,” Katie says. “She could have adopted anyone, and she chose me. It’s incredible that all these years later I could help her, and now we are physicially connected.”
“If the roles were reversed, I would have done it in a minute,” Marsha says. “I can’t thank Katie enough.”
Katie and Marsha’s treatment and results may not be representative of other cases.