Kidney Transplant for Sara & Kambrie

Sara and Kambrie are best friends. Sara is sick and needs a kidney. Kambrie is completing the testing process to see if she is a match. Even if she isn’t a perfect match, through a process called paired donation, she can still donate a kidney. Another donor who is a match would then donate a kidney to Sara. My name is Carrie, and Sara is my little sister. Running this campaign for her is not much, but I would do anything to see my sister happy and healthy again. As a nurse, I know how much of a physical and financial impact dialysis has on my patients and I hate that my sister is going through this.

Sara first got sick when she was 13. She had a weird rash that covered her legs and arms. The doctors diagnosed her with a rare condition called HSP - Henoch Scholein Purpura. Typically, this condition affects children under the age of five, and it primarily affects boys. Sara was an exception to the rule in multiple ways. Typically the disease lasts a few weeks to a month, then disappears forever. Sara’s first episode lasted 8 months. During this time she saw a cardiologist, pediatric nephrologist, dermatologist and a whole host of other medical workers. She had lab work done every month. She had to travel extensively to make her doctor appointments and the disease itself prevented her from going to school because some days she was in so much pain she couldn’t walk.

(This is what the rash looks like)

When Sara was 17, after multiple episodes of the disease presenting itself, she called us and let us know that her doctor had bad news. She was living alone in Colorado at this point, double majoring in biomedical and chemical engineering at Colorado State University, volunteering and working a full-time job. Her doctor said that the disease had moved into her kidneys and her only hope of avoiding full-blown kidney failure was an experimental treatment - six months of high-dose chemotherapy.

Sara moved back home to be closer to the family since she was still a minor, and on her 18th birthday, the treatment started.

Without going into all the details about how bad the treatment was, at the end, we got the news that the treatment did not work. As her family, we were devastated for her. She ended up in end-stage renal failure.

She got listed for a kidney transplant right away. Thirty-four people offered to donate a kidney. In the end, the perfect match ended up being Sara’s mom, my ex-stepmom.

On July 25th, 2017 Mysty donated her kidney in San Francisco on the transplant floor of UCSF.

(Sara and Mysty a few days after the transplant)

After the donation, the problems started. Without going into everything that happened, Sara ended up in the hospital almost monthly for 4-5 days at a time, with kidney infections. Four times from these kidney infections she developed sepsis. The first time she developed sepsis, the stress on her body took such a toll she was in the ICU for a week at a large hospital in Wichita, Kansas and the stress sent her kidney into rejection. This was to be the first of six bouts with rejection.

These issues threw Sara into a deep depression. Her anxiety about her health and the combination of these near-death experiences made the world a very dark and daunting place for her. There is no sugarcoating what she went through. She was sick to the point of being suicidal and for several months stopped her medications entirely, including her transplant medications.

At this time, she was going to therapy and this is where she met her best friend, Kambrie. Kambrie ended up moving in with Sara and Justin while she was going through a bitter divorce, a parental abduction of her six-week-old infant, and a horrible custody feud. With Sara’s support and the support of her other family and friends, she made it through. An amazing friendship was formed and as her family, we are so grateful for Kambrie’s selfless and incredible gift.

After meeting Kambrie, a miracle happened. Sara got pregnant, despite being told that her eggs were gone and she was too sick physically to ever get pregnant or have a successful pregnancy.

Despite this, Riley Jean was born August 12th, 2020. A good 8 lbs, she was an incredibly healthy and such a happy baby. After a short two days, they brought her home and we got to meet my new niece! She is such a joy to our family.

(The birth of Riley Jean Long)

Again, Sara’s mental health took a turn for the worse. She experienced severe postpartum depression and anxiety, to the point that she ended up in the hospital twice. At this point, her doctors were very concerned about her kidney as well. After so many infections and bouts with rejection, and the difficulty of the pregnancy, her kidney was at great risk of failing.

Most people don’t know this, but kidney transplants don’t last forever. Most have an expiration date of around 10-20 years. Sara had hers for 6 years when she had her most recent bout of rejection. Rejection medications can cause changes in mood so severe that sometimes people have to be hospitalized, even when they have good mental health to begin with.

Sara was in a very bad place, and her doctors were worried about the impact that these medications would have on her mood and very concerned that these medications and the resulting changes in her mood might drive her to commit suicide.

So they refused to treat the rejection and the kidney failed. Sara ended up back in end-stage renal failure and in August, she started on in-center dialysis.

Sara got very sick from the treatment due to a heart condition that she has called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. Basically, any shifts in blood volume (like the ones that happen every time you do a dialysis treatment) cause really high heart rates and low blood pressure, causing her to pass out during or after most treatments, in addition to experiencing chest pain, shortness of breath and general malaise.

For this reason, her cardiologist believes it is critical to get a transplant as soon as possible.

This is where you come in - as a potential donor to this campaign, you can help things move along more quickly to help my sister get off dialysis. Kambrie has to come to Georgia multiple times to do testing to become a donor. This testing cannot be performed in Kansas, where she lives. This means she needs money to cover missed work, flights, lodging and transportation for these visits. The medical cost of the testing is covered by Tricare, which is the insurance that Sara has thanks to her husband (Justin’s) military service.

The faster we can raise these funds for Sara and Kambrie, the sooner Sara can get a transplant and stop experiencing the cardiac symptoms that are making her life so hard.

Thank you for taking the time to read my sister’s story, and thank you for sharing her story with your family and friends. If you have the ability to donate, we sincerely appreciate your donation in any amount. If you have any questions or would like to help, please reach out to me, Sara or Kambrie.