When Your Body Rejects The Kidney It Needs

Short Wave

NPR

Science, Life Sciences, News, Nature, Daily News, Astronomy

4.7 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

In February 2021, pandemic restrictions were just starting to ease in Hawaii, and Leila Mirhaydari was finally able to see her kidney doctor. Transplanted organs need diligent care, and Leila had been looking after her donated kidney all on her own for a year. So a lot was riding on that first batch of lab results.

"Immediately, all my levels were just out of whack and I knew that I was in rejection," she says. "I've had to work through a lot of emotional pain, of feeling like I failed my donor. Like, why couldn't I hold on to this kidney?"

On today's episode, editor Gabriel Spitzer walks us through Leila's journey — from spending her late 20s on dialysis, to being saved by a gift and ultimately, to the search for another donated kidney.

Learn more about living donation from the United Network for Organ Sharing.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.0	Hi Shortravers, Emily Quang here with Editor Gabriel Spitzer. Hello.
0:10.0	Hey Emily.
0:11.0	Okay, so you're going to introduce us to someone?
0:13.0	Yes, yeah.
0:14.0	This is a fellow Seattle area person.
0:16.0	I first talked to her about eight years ago.
0:19.0	Her name is Leila Mirhadehari.
0:22.0	She was in her late 20s at the time.
0:24.0	And one day she woke up and found that her vision had gone kind of wonky.
0:28.0	So she went to get it checked out.
0:30.0	The physician came in sat down quietly and told me that my kidneys had failed.
0:35.0	That I had maybe about 5% left.
0:38.0	I didn't know if I was going to live to see tomorrow or I was an organ failure.
0:44.0	Oh, wow.
0:45.0	Yeah.
0:46.0	And when your kidneys fail, your body's no longer filtering the waste products out of your blood.
0:51.0	And so your blood itself can become toxic.
0:53.0	And for Leila, this actually caused bleeding in her eyes.
0:57.0	This sounds like a really scary thing for her.
1:00.0	And when you talked to her eight years ago, you said she was in her late 20s.
1:05.0	I mean, that's really young to go through something like this.
	...

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