Jessy Bennett’s kidneys saw a drop from 54% functionality when she was pregnant with her first child to 26% with her second just 2 years later. Now, after hovering around 14% functionality in both kidneys, she has found a donor — her brother-in-law and local firefighter — and she is an advocate for individuals facing this “silent disease.”
Bennett said she learned of her declining functionality when she was pregnant with her first child. Doctors noticed an elevated level of creatine in her blood, which they told her was normal during pregnancy.
“But mine was over the limit. So, they referred me out to a nephrologist, and we went from there,” Bennett recalled. “Pregnancy is incredibly hard on your kidneys, and for me, in particular, that’s really what tanked my function.”
Since the birth of her second child, her kidney functionality has dropped 1% every year. It wasn’t until she reached 20% that she was able to be placed on the surgery list for a new kidney.
Bennett said a biopsy showed she had no active infection or disease, but doctors believe the source of her kidney failure dates back to her childhood.
“[The doctors] said is that most likely when I was little, I got sick and whatever the sickness was, it scarred my kidneys and then over time — because you do lose function of your kidneys — I just lost a little bit more function. Then pregnancy was very hard on my kidneys, and so they’re both so scarred that there’s no coming back,” Bennett said.
Her kidneys have continued to drop in functionality to the point she is in end-stage renal failure, just 4% away from dialysis.
Bennett’s doctors placed her on the transplant list last year, and by February she was in consultation with a transplant team in Louisville. Following the series of unfortunate circumstances, Bennett said, is when she got “extremely lucky.”
A match found
Bennett said that by June 2023, her kidneys were at 14% functionality, which inspired the transplant team to hurry the process to find a match before she reached dialysis. The team encouraged Bennett to make a Facebook post saying they were looking for donors, hoping she’d find a match.
“We had a fantastic response, actually. I had about 19 people reach out to me looking to contact the transplant center. I’m not sure how many of those 19 actually did call the transplant center because I’m not allowed to know those numbers due to HIPAA, but they did say we had a lot of people call in,” she said.
Typically, tests are done on a first-call basis, but Bennett said a hiccup with their insurance halted the testing for a month. Even though the team didn’t test any of the people during the delay, they looked through each of the applicant’s bios and ranked them based on the likelihood they would be a match, Bennett said.
So, rather than the typical process of testing based on call order, the doctors used the prioritized list. That meant the most likely match, Tyler Grant, was the first to test.
“They called me and told me that I had a match and asked her if anyone had reached out or if I knew who [Tyler was], and that’s when I told them he’s actually my brother-in-law. So they were flabbergasted that that was such a close relation,” Bennett said.
Bennett initially kept her kidney issues private for some time. When she first started sharing her situation with her family, Bennett said, Grant was one of the first who was ready to donate.
According to Grant, the doctors chose him because his age, BMI, health history, and several other factors all made him the best candidate — plus his blood type was eligible, unlike the rest of Bennett’s family.
Grant said he jumped at the call because it reminded him of the reason why he became a firefighter at Owensboro Fire Department.
“There’s something that needs to be done, and I’ve got the ability to do it. So why shouldn’t I do it? It wouldn’t feel right to not do it,” he said.
Bennett said that’s what she’s come to expect of Grant.
“Tyler is always willing to step up and help out, and he’s just a really great guy. If Captain America were a person, it would be Tyler,” she said.
Now, the two are preparing for the surgery in early January, with 6 weeks of recovery expected for Bennett and 8 weeks for Grant. Both are homeschooling families, so finding how to prepare their children to stay on track is one of the main priorities.
Both also said they’ve already seen an outpouring of support from friends and family.
Grant noted that he won’t be eligible to work for 2 weeks, and he’s had phone call after phone call from other firefighters offering to cover all of his missing shifts. They’ve also held fundraisers and raffles to help fund the surgery for Bennett.
“People didn’t even hesitate. It was almost to the point where you had guys fighting to help out, and it’s amazing. It’s overwhelming,” Grant said.
Bennett’s recovery and advocacy
The surgery will not be a full replacement, as Bennett said they will place Grant’s kidney while keeping her failing kidneys still attached. She said from there her birth kidneys will shut down, and her body will hopefully accept Grant’s kidney.
But with no transplant being 100% perfect, she has to prepare her body not to reject and attack Grant’s kidney.
While she’s expecting a 6-week recovery period, Bennett said she’s heard of some situations where the body needs more time to regain itself.
“By 6 weeks, yes, you’re up and moving and able to live normal-ish, but it really takes about 6 months to get your energy back and to really feel normal and have the same amount of energy you did before,” she said.
Bennett’s decision not to initially discuss her kidney failure with her family, aside from her husband, is not unusual.
From what Bennett has learned from the doctors and her own research, kidney failure is far more common than perceived, as people naturally lose function in their kidneys over time. According to the Noncommunicable Disease Alliance, about 10% of the adult population is living with some degree of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), and every year millions die prematurely from CKD and related complications.
She even noted some of the symptoms she had in earlier stages, which many don’t notice until later.
“For me, there were a few things that I had noticed over the last couple of years. I noticed more fatigue, bathroom trips at night, retaining water, and some swelling. Those are pretty typical things for kidney failure,” she said. “…But it didn’t really interfere or affect my life much until this last year. The fatigue has gotten pretty crazy in the last year or so.”
Over the last year, she has seen how some families aren’t as lucky as her to find the donor so quickly. She noted there are even families in Owensboro who have reached out to her and have had difficulty in their journeys.
She said it was often that she would learn of several others who were in the same position she was, or who were at some point on the transplant journey.
“It’s been amazing that there is this almost an underground support system of people who have kidney disease, and it’s so quiet and in the background that we didn’t know it existed,” she said. “I’ve encouraged people to talk about it because nobody’s going to know what it is if we don’t talk about it.”
For people interested in donating or learning more about the process, Bennett encourages them to learn more here.
