One year after a double organ transplant, Delia Sanchez is finally beginning to get back to normal. A year ago today, the 30-year-old got a new lease on life when she received a kidney and liver from a 19-year-old female who perished in a car accident.
The ailments that kept Sanchez on her death bed for nearly two years began decades ago, after contracting a bacterial infection during a stay in Germany, where Sanchez’s stepfather was stationed at a U.S. Army base.
Since suffering from the bacterial infection, Sanchez experienced symptoms similar to acid reflux, caused by elevated liver enzymes. Though uncomfortable, she never worried too much about the condition. Occasionally, doctors would give her medication and tweak her diet to bring the enzyme levels down.
Those minor visits to the doctor turned into major ones about three years ago when Sanchez was working on the construction of the Keystone Pipeline in the Dakotas.
“I just started to feel sick,” she said.
“It was happening all day long,” she said. “I’d be talking to someone and all of sudden I’d throw up.”
With her in the Dakotas was her boyfriend of 17 years, David Garver, also an Iola native.
Garver said he could tell something serious was going on.
“It was too much for her so we packed up and went home,” he said.
Once home, it became clear Sanchez wasn’t battling a run-of-the-mill sickness.
Before long, she fell into a four-month-long coma.
Her liver had shut down followed by her kidneys, though doctors at the Kansas University Medical Center were not clear as to why.
The situation was dire for Sanchez.
After being released from the hospital following her coma, Sanchez was placed on a waiting list for liver and kidney transplants. Meanwhile, three-times weekly trips to the Neosho Memorial Regional Medical Center in Chanute for dialysis — she’d spend four hours there each session — was what was keeping her alive.
Sanchez’s condition was so bad, Garver said, her friends thought she might be one of the 6,500 every year who die while waiting for organs to become available.
