A kidney donation saved a Chicago area mom's life not once, but twice
Everyone faces challenges in life, but a suburban woman faced a life-threatening challenge not once, but twice.
When Lisa Gee's body failed her again and again, she said she needed to press through and push other people to step up.
Gee says she's just a regular mom and grandma, but she's also a fighter.
"I knew that that wasn't the answer, to give up," Gee said.
She often thinks of the day her doctors delivered the horrible news. She was just 19 years old.
"They told me that I was in end-stage renal failure," Gee said. "And I was so very young. I did not know what kidney disease was."
That wasn't all.
"I was also pregnant with my second son," she said. "I just thought I was losing, losing my life."
Gee spent the next eight years on dialysis, more than three hours a day, three days a week. The treatment left her so tired that she could barely move. Her son Martez said the entire family was hurting.
"She was just absent, and then when I did see her, she was hooked up to machines at home," said Martez McGregor.
But then, after those eight long years, everything changed in a minute.
"I got a call that there was a kidney waiting for me, and [I was asked] did I want to accept it?" she said. "And I said, "Yes! Yes, I want that kidney.'"
Thanks to Gift of Hope and Rush University Medical Center, Gee got a second chance thanks to a kidney transplant.
"I was able to live," she said. "Live for my children. I was able to participate in their sports."
Gee put her own love of sports to great use by winning medal after medal at the Transplant Games of America. The event promotes amateur sports among people who have had organ transplants.
"We meet up every two years in different states," she said. "There are thousands of transplant recipients."
Then, one day, unbelievably, the bottom fell out again. After 21 years, her doctors said they found cancer in her transplant kidney.
It was back to dialysis for another four years. Then, the roller coaster took yet another turn.
"I got a call that there was a second kidney waiting for me," Gee said. "I did not know that I was going to get another chance at life."
Dr. Edward Hollinger at Rush said a significant portion of his patients on a waiting list for a transplant are those who need a second, third, or fourth kidney transplant.
"The challenge often with getting the second kidney transplant is that you have antibodies and that makes finding a match more challenging," Hollinger said.
He said that's why organ donation is so crucial. Gee not only agreed, but she made it her mission to get the word out, even meeting with lawmakers at an American Kidney Fund summit in Washington, D.C.
"I speak for those that don't have a voice," Gee said. "That are so weak and do not have strength to advocate for themselves."
These days, Gee is back on the athletic field, including just last week at the 2024 Transplant Games in Birmingham, Alabama. She's immersed in swimming, basketball, and gratitude, and she made a plea to others to be organ donors.
"There are so many people dying every day, waiting for a kidney transplant" she said. "God gave us two kidneys. You only need one to live. Save someone's life."
Gee said when she first received a diagnosis of renal failure at 19, she had no support system. Now, she said she feels love all around.
To learn more about becoming an organ donor, visit GiftOfHope.org.
