Laurie Melby (at center), a Canby resident and CNA at Avera Marshall, said receiving a new kidney in February has made a big impact on her life. This week, Melby spoke about her experiences, together with dialysis nurse manager Lillian Onyeaghala (at left), and CNP Candice VanderPlaats.

MARSHALL — It was the phone call Laurie Melby had been waiting more than a year for. At 5 a.m., while Melby was working her shift as a Certified Nursing Assistant in Marshall, she got the news that she would be receiving a new kidney.

“When I got the call that morning, I was in complete shock,” Melby said. “I was just a mix of emotions. Like, is this really happening right now?”

Melby successfully underwent a kidney transplant in February. The gift of organ donation is one that has had a huge impact on her life, she said. “I have a new outlook.”

Melby is a Canby resident, and she works with long-term care residents at Avera Morningside Heights Care Center. But over the years, she has also lived with a chronic illness.

“I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was 20, and it runs pretty strong on both sides of my family,” Melby said. “I was doing OK at first,” she said. But after about 10 years, Melby experienced kidney failure.

Melby said she tried not to focus too much on her condition at first. “Honestly, I really didn’t overly focus on it until my dad passed away,” she said. Laurie’s dad Bill Melby died three years ago, of renal failure. “That kind of kicked me into gear,” she said.

Melby was placed on the transplant list for a kidney, and in July 2023 she started dialysis. Three mornings a week, Melby would come to Avera Marshall for the procedure, which filters waste out of the bloodstream. Each dialysis session was about three and a half hours long, she said.

“Once you get to know everybody, it’s not as stressful. You can joke around with certain people, and you get to know other patients, also,” Melby said. Dialysis nurse manager Lillian Onyeaghala was one of the people Melby got to know while she was receiving dialysis.

“(Laurie) was still working, even when she started dialysis,” Onyeaghala said.

“I was working pretty much full time,” Melby said. “But I love it.” The residents she cared for kept her going, she said. Melby said she also took things one day at a time.

“I do know the closer I got to my transplant, the more tired I was,” she said.

Melby said she was on the transplant list for a kidney for about a year and a half, before she got the call for her transplant. “Which, actually, for that is not that long. When I had my evaluation they told me not to be surprised if it was five to six years,” she said.

The call came early in the morning on Feb. 8, while Melby was at work.

“I actually missed the first call,” she said, because she was with a long-term care resident. “I went out and I looked at (my phone). I was like, I don’t recognize that number. So I just set it back down, and as soon as I set it back down it rang again. I’m glad I answered it that time.”

“They asked me, how fast can you get to Sioux Falls?” she said. “I was like, ‘I can be there by 9:30 (a.m.).'”

The whole morning was a blur, Melby said.

She called her mother Kris and sister Joni, and rushed home to Canby to meet up with Joni. “We were pretty much running around like chickens with our heads cut off, throwing things in bags, and making sure we had everything that we needed,” Melby said. “Thankfully, the person who called me had given me a list of things to make sure I had with, so I was going off that list.”

“Then we went and picked up Mom, and I drove down to Sioux Falls, because it kept my nerves down. I had to focus,” Melby said. “And my sister was in charge of keeping everybody in the loop, my friends and stuff. We got down there about 9:10, and I was in surgery that afternoon.”

Onyeaghala said patients on the transplant list are encouraged to prepare and have backup transportation planned for when they get the call. “Because if you don’t get there in that timeframe, they move on to the next person. So it was really, really good that Laurie had already planned that this might happen,” she said.

Melby said she did not know the person who donated the kidney she received. She said she was only told that the donor was a 12-year-old child.

“We had talked, too, like trying to grasp that concept,” said CNP Candice VanderPlaats, Melby’s primary care provider. A family had lost a child, and still made the life-saving decision to donate an organ.

It was a decision Melby said she was grateful for. “I hope to someday meet (the donor’s) parents,” she said.

The recovery process after the transplant surgery took some time. Melby was hospitalized in Sioux Falls for about six days, before moving to the Walsh Family Village, Avera’s patient hospitality home in Sioux Falls, for about a month.

After the transplant, “The first couple of days were kind of rough, but after that it wasn’t too bad,” Melby said. “I think I was still like, in shock for a while. It was more the thought of, ‘This really happened.'”

The new kidney started functioning in less than a day, and it had a big impact on Melby’s life.

“It was amazing how your kidney functions and everything improved so quickly afterwards,” VanderPlaats said. Melby no longer needs dialysis.

“I think one of the harder adjustments was, you have to go from a very strict diet . . . to pretty much the opposite,” Melby said. For example, when she was on a diet to protect her kidneys, she had to avoid drinks like dark-colored soda because they contained phosphorus. “When you’re on dialysis, they don’t want you to have it because of the phosphorus. But then when you get the new kidney, you need the phosphorus,” she said.

Melby said her team of doctors and nurses helped a lot with her recovery. “They were all very good, and took very good care of me. Some of them even had a sense of humor,” she said.

Melby said having support from family, friends, co-workers and community members was also important as she recovered from surgery. Her mom stayed with her in Sioux Falls “We had a lot of bonding time,” Melby said. She also got to know a fellow patient at the Walsh Village.

People back in Marshall also asked about Melby. Onyeaghala said one of Melby’s fellow dialysis patients had asked about her when she was gone. Melby’s co-workers have also told her that Morningside Heights residents have been asking when she’s coming back.

Melby said receiving a kidney has been a big change. She has more energy, and more freedom when it comes to things like cooking a meal or going on a vacation. She’s also excited to go back to work in May.

Melby encouraged people to consider donating organs, or becoming a living organ donor.

“For people who are thinking about being a donor, I would definitely do it, because there’s so many lives that you can save,” Melby said.

“And if you’re on the other side, waiting to receive an organ, don’t lose hope,” she said. “Just take it a day at a time.”

More resources and information on how to become an organ, tissue or bone marrow donor is available online, through organizations like Donate Life America, at https://donatelife.net. Information on how to become a donor is also available on Avera Health’s website, at https://www.avera.org/services/transplant/become-a-donor/.