When Lexie Libby wheeled herself into her sister’s hospital room after undergoing transplant surgery, she saw how frail Emma was and couldn’t hold back her tears. Just days earlier, Emma Libby had donated her left kidney to Lexie — a gift that saved her life.
Emma Libby donated a kidney to her sister Lexie, saving her life. 2:03
When Lexie Libby wheeled herself into her sister’s hospital room, she saw how frail Emma was and couldn’t hold back her tears.
Just days earlier, Emma Libby had donated her left kidney to Lexie — a gift that saved her life.
“It was tough for me after she’d done such an amazing thing to see her so down and out,” Lexie said.
The Sylvan Lake, Alta., sisters had waited nearly two years for the transplant surgery. And after all the obstacles they’d overcome together, neither could believe it had finally happened.
Lexie, 30, has been sick most of her life with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack the kidneys.
She spent close to nine years on dialysis, and faced numerous challenges before the transplant, including multiple infections and a blood clot in her heart.
It was incredibly difficult to find a donor.
Many of her friends and family were tested but no one was a match.
Emma, now 22, failed the blood pressure component. That’s when she secretly decided to quit smoking and improve her health to save her sister’s life.
“I was just hoping that if I wasn’t able to do it that someone else would be able to, and it didn’t work out that way,” Emma said. “So I thought, I better get it together and give it another try.”
When she was retested, she learned she was a match.
Hopeless
CBC News spoke to the sisters last year, when they were weeks away from the January date for their transplant surgery.
Then the surgery was cancelled — twice.
“I was just a mess, I was so sad,” said Emma. “We felt hopeless at that point because we’d been waiting for so long to get that date.”
Lexie wasn’t healthy enough for the transplant, and still remembers getting the call from her sister, who passed on the bad news.
“It was head to toe disappointment,” Lexie said. “I remember crying probably for the rest of the drive home.”
Her health had deteriorated to the point where it was difficult t