Jackie Stenzil & Bobbi Jo Wesley

We are Jackie and Bobbi Jo, a mother/daughter team!  In 1990, after much testing on myself (Bobbi Jo) the doctors finally realized what was wrong with me and by the time they did, it was urgent.  I had surgery that night and started dialysis the next day, I was 16 years old and had never had a thing wrong with me!  All of this was overwhelming and scary.  The doctors wanted me to be on dialysis for at least 6 months.  As soon as the word transplant was mentioned, my parents were on board and ready to get tested.  After a huge mix up, and thinking that my dad would donate, it was discovered that he couldn’t so my mom got tested and the date was set for transplant. March 28, 1991.  It was a huge success and I did very well with my moms kidney!  I finished high school, went away to university, became a teacher, got married, had a baby, travelled and lived a great life for 31+ years.  My mom also had very few complications and healed well and was healthy for those years.  Unfortunately, the kidney she donated to me started to get tired and stopped working  in 2020 and so that was the ending of that story, but not the end of my story.  I was on dialysis for another year and then in 2023, I was gifted a kidney from a deceased donor.  I am forever grateful to my mom.