Woman saves 2 lives after being inspired by her father's kidney failure journey

DENVER (KKTV/Gray News) – A decision made by a Colorado woman because of her love for her father impacted not only him, but also a stranger in need.

In 2015, an autoimmune disease destroyed Tommy Buckley’s kidneys within months.

Kelli Strother, Buckley’s daughter, said her father was “larger than life.”

“He was a cowboy. He was a guy that I thought was invincible,” she said. “And seeing him not feel good, not being able to do the things he loved to do.”

As advanced patients often are, Buckley was put on dialysis.

“When you get to the level of dialysis, it saves your life, but it’s not necessarily a great quality of life,” Strother said. “It takes time, it’s limiting.”

Strother said her father’s condition at the time made her feel helpless.

Hundreds of miles away, near the Texas-Oklahoma border, another family was dealing with a similar situation.

Willayna Williams was only 40 years old when her kidneys began to fail.

Now in her fifties, she had entered the final stages of kidney disease.

In advanced stages, chronic fatigue, nausea, swelling, severe itching, migraines, and just a general feeling of weakness and nausea are among the daily symptoms.

The kidneys no longer function well, requiring hours of daily or every other day connection to dialysis machines. Without dialysis or a transplant, it is fatal.

Williams’ husband Early, a pastor at a Baptist church in Vernon, Texas, wanted to save his wife’s life by becoming her donor. But despite a wonderful marriage with children and grandchildren, they learned from doctors that they were incompatible in one way: Williams’ body did not accept Early’s kidneys.

“A light bulb went off”

In Colorado, Strother became more involved with the regional chapter of the National Kidney Foundation, first as part of his job and then as a resource for dealing with his father’s worsening health.

She spoke regularly to donors and transplant recipients, but it was one conversation in particular that changed her life.

“At that point, living donation didn’t seem practical to me because I knew very little about it. It didn’t seem like something I could do,” she said.

She said she then met a teacher at a Denver elementary school who had recently received a kidney.

When she asked him about his story, he said the parent of one of his students donated his kidney to him.

“It was like a light bulb went off,” Strother said. “I said to myself, ‘He’s a parent. Why the hell don’t I give my kidney to my dad? It was just this “Ah-ha!” » moment you hear about.

The tragedy for so many Americans on the transplant waiting list is that the number of people in need far exceeds the number of organs available.

According to data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), in 2017, 115,000 people were on the waiting list for organ donation.

The number of donors available was 16,473.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, people die every year while waiting for a kidney.

KKTV knows this statistic very well, having lost a friend and colleague to end-stage kidney disease a few years ago, at just 36 years old. He had been on the waiting list for over two years.

Living donors are essential, but they are also difficult to find.

For Buckley, if his daughter were a suitable donor, he would be one of the lucky ones not to have to sign up for the waiting list.

For Williams, it was his only option.

These two families were about to collide.

“You are a match”

Strother took all the necessary steps to become her father’s donor. In March 2019, four years after her father was first put on dialysis, she received the call she had been praying for.

She was up to it.

“I’ll never forget… It’s one of those moments that stays in your mind forever,” she said.

Then the doctor told him something else.

“You match your father. But you also match a woman who is in our system and cannot take a kidney from her husband because of the antibodies,” the doctor told him. “Would you be willing to donate your kidney to this other person in our system?” »

In what was nothing short of miraculous, these complete strangers – Stother and Buckley, Willayna and Early – were a match for each other. Early was unable to donate to his wife, but was a suitable donor for Stother’s father. Williams couldn’t take her husband’s kidney but was a match for Strother.

“I had a question,” Strother said. “ “Will my father’s outcome change to get a non-family kidney?” And they said, “Absolutely not.”

Then the doctor told Strother she could “end two people on dialysis in one day.”

On May 23, 2019, these two people were actually released from dialysis in one day.

“Are you in a lot of pain?” »

Strother said the effects of kidney donation were immediate for his father.

“He had his color back…he felt better than I did after the surgery because he had just been very sick,” Strother said.

Strother said recovering alongside his father was a fun experience.

“When I first got to see him after the transplant, I walked in and the first words out of his mouth were, ‘Are you in a lot of pain, Kelli?’ “I’m in real pain, Dad,” she said.

She said the experience ended up being fun for her.

“It sounds really silly to call it fun, but you can’t… there’s nothing more powerful than that, to experience that and just have that connection,” she said.

Strother said his recovery was quick, with only several weeks of pain and some weight restrictions. For five years, his life and his body have been completely normal.

Although she now only has one kidney, Strother said it hasn’t had a big impact on her life.

“This is really a case where we have received a replacement organ and we can live a long, healthy life,” she said.

On the advice of the transplant team, Stother and Buckley were not allowed to meet with Williams and Early before or immediately after the procedure.

Several months later, Strother contacted the transplant center.

She said she waited a long time to meet the other couple. Then, just before the pandemic hit in 2020, she said she received a phone call from Early.

“I was in an Uber and I just started bawling,” Strother said.

Strother said it was because of Early that his father was able to return to the world from which his failing kidneys had cut him off.

“It was really special to see him be able to engage again in the things he loved most,” Kelli said.

Williams also got decades of his life back.

“She is a mother, grandmother, kindergarten teacher. So all those things she could come back to energetically because she was no longer on dialysis and she felt great,” Strother said.

The COVID-19 pandemic made things complicated for the two families who wanted to meet in person.

However, after some time of waiting for everything to happen safely, the two donors and the two recipients were finally able to meet face to face.

Strother said the reunion was “indescribable” and that the two families became one.