Katelyn Pickel - 16
"I started dialysis my first day in the hospital, Oct. 28. I'm glad to be off of it and have this transplant behind me. I hope to get back on with my life and pick up where I left off."
“I never had any symptoms of any problems. Around July of 2013 I just started to feel sick. At first, pretty much everyone thought it was just teenage troubles. They thought it might be hormones. I thought it was something more.
“The doctors decided to take some blood samples, and a few days later when I was at school, they called my parents and told them to get me to a hospital—that I was going into kidney failure.
“My life was still pretty normal until October 2013. I was going to school and hanging out with my friends and doing extracurricular activities. I did some college work on the side.
“I started dialysis my first day in the hospital, Oct. 28, 2013. I’m so glad to be off of it and have this transplant behind me. I hope to get back on with my life and pick up where I left off. I want to keep moving forward. I just graduated from high school, and I plan to take a year or two of online classes and then transfer to a university. I hope to get into psychology. I think it would be fun.”