Bev Gephardt speaks at the Easter Carver County School Board meeting on Jan. 22, sitting among red-clad teachers who have gathered to give input on ongoing contract negotiations with the school district. Then she realized that what she was looking for was something unexpected. She had petitioned the school board to put up banners at high school games to find a donor for her kidney.
But kidneys weren’t for her. “It was for her neighbor’s daughter-in-law,” Gefert says.
Lisa Armstrong needs a kidney transplant. Her former school social worker was forced to retire due to kidney failure, and she has been receiving dialysis three times a week since May last year.
Armstrong is not angry or bitter about his condition. “I’m going to keep trying because I have to,” Armstrong said. Her goal is to see her daughter, a junior at Waconia, graduate from high school.
Armstrong has had diabetes since he was 6 years old. She received her first kidney transplant from her mother in 1995. Ten years later, she received a pancreas transplant to cure her diabetes. Her second transplant failed and damaged her new kidney.
Armstrong received a second kidney transplant from his sister in 2010, but in 2011 it was discovered that he had developed cancer due to the effects of the transplant drug. “When you get a transplant, there are a lot of drugs you need to take to trick your body into thinking the organ is yours,” Dr. Armstrong says. According to her, cancer is a known side effect of these drugs.
Armstrong started chemotherapy and was cancer-free for more than 10 years, but the process damaged his kidney again and required a third transplant.
At this time, Ms. Armstrong was still working as a school social worker. “None of my colleagues at public school knew I was sick,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong started dialysis in May 2023 due to kidney failure.
Mr. Armstrong calmly explained this timeline and laughed when I asked if he was upset about it. “I’m just looking for a kidney to survive,” she says frankly.
Armstrong is on the list for a deceased donor kidney transplant, among tens of thousands of others in similar need.
The process of donating a kidney to a specific person is called direct donation. There are several levels of screening to see if a person can be a donor, but the key is to be “healthy and not taking a lot of medications,” Armstrong said. Age isn’t necessarily a factor either.
The advantage of starting the screening process for organ donation is that not only is it free, but it also covers a lot more than kidney health. Potential donors undergo a full-body scan that can detect many potential problems beyond kidney health. There are grants to replace lost wages and people can live healthy and normal lives even if they only have one kidney. “God gave us both of them for a reason,” Armstrong says.
Another option is a paired exchange, where if a donor is unable to donate a kidney to Armstrong, it can be given in her name. By doing so, Ms. Armstrong will not receive a kidney from that donor, but will be moved to the top of her list to receive a kidney from a compatible donor.
If you would like to donate, please call 612-625-5115 and mention Lisa Armstrong’s name.You can also visit www.uofmtransplant.org For more information.
