Faith, Friendship & a Kidney

“Dear Santa, For Christmas this year I would like for all my loved ones to receive nothing but blessings and a kidney for me, it doesn’t have to be new,” he wrote on his Instagram account where his family and friends have been keeping up on his journey of living in kidney failure. 

Better late than never, Santa delivered this spring. With a bag of beans and unwavering determination, Trisha Coker gave him that gift.

Manny is a full-time security guard at Ivinson Memorial Hospital, a paraprofessional at Indian Paintbrush Elementary School, a crafter in the kitchen, a comic book lover, a gym rat and arguably, one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. 

Passing him in the gym you may never know that for two years, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, he’s spent over four hours in a dialysis chair receiving life-saving treatment.

In 2019, what started as an aggressive cold turned out to be pneumonia that put him in the hospital. Instead of improving, Manny got worse and required intubation. He was on a ventilator for a week with new health problems arising daily, high blood pressure, cardiac concerns, worsening lung function and kidney problems. 

Following his hospitalization, Manny worked to improve his health but in August 2021, COVID-19 put him back in the hospital for two weeks. This time, he went into kidney failure. 

“My kidneys don’t filter properly,” Manny explained of living with kidney failure. ​“They don’t get rid of the toxins like a regular kidney does. To fix that, I have to get my blood filtered every other day.”

While most 29-year-olds have the freedom to make plans, eat, drink and travel on a whim, that was not in Manny’s cards. He began dialysis treatment three days a week. 

“Being on dialysis, it humbled me a lot. You’re stuck in a chair for four hours without the freedom to just walk away. You’re there to get healthy, but the cost of being healthy is you’re tired, you’re fatigued, you don’t get to go do whatever your friends are doing because you have to go to your treatments.”

Not letting anything keep him from reaching his goals, Manny wrapped up his annual toy drive in December of 2021 with a helping hand from Ivinson. After surpassing that goal, Manny received other good news, he was officially on the transplant list for a new kidney.

“Within the year I got onto the kidney transplant list, but it’s a whole process, and a huge list,” Manny explained of the large obstacle ahead. ​“You can shorten it if you can find somebody that wants to donate to you, but other than that, you wait.”

Crossing Paths

Holding someone’s hand on their worst day or helping tell their stories on their best days, Trisha finds satisfaction in helping those she encounters every day. 

Trisha has worn many hats throughout the years. As a current photographer, ballroom dancing instructor and Emergency Department Technician at Ivinson Memorial Hospital, she could teach you a thing or two about just about anything- except welding. As a self-described jack-of-all-trades, Trisha had been living in Connecticut and working as an EMT for the last several years. In December of 2021, she left ambulance work to head for greener pastures that brought her closer to family. A pasture that would change one’s fate. 

Bringing her photography business with her, Trisha accepted a full-time role in Ivinson’s emergency department as an ED Tech and unit secretary. It was there that she met Manny. 

“He worked security, so his desk was 20 feet away from mine,” Trisha explained. ​“Anytime that we had a combative patient or anything that would require security’s assistance, Manny would always come in and help. When he would make his rounds, he’d always stop by the nurse’s station. Watching him interact with everybody else, the one thing I knew for sure about Manny is that everybody loves this guy.”

Getting to know him for his helpfulness, positivity and the desserts he whipped up in the kitchen, it took some time before Trisha learned about Manny’s kidney condition. Working in an emergency department and as a first responder, Trisha was shocked to learn that when he wasn’t making his rounds as security, Manny was on dialysis. Working on an ambulance, she had driven many patients to and from dialysis. But never someone so young.

“He came in and he just got to talking about his treatments. I’m thinking, this guy is young. He’s really young and he’s on dialysis? He told me his story and how dialysis took up a lot of time just being there and then also the recovery time from those appointments. But he never once mentioned that he actually was on the kidney transplant list.” 

Trisha learned about Manny’s need for a kidney the same way anyone finds out big news these days, she read it on Facebook.

“I would see his random posts about Marvel and DC and wrestling and all of a sudden, there was this random one about needing a kidney. I found out about the kidney transplant list through Facebook, of all places.”

Finding A Match

According to the American Kidney Fund, There are more than 106,000 people on the national transplant waiting list with 92,000 (87%) waiting for a kidney. This list, managed by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is a database of individuals waiting for an organ transplant from a deceased donor. Most people waiting for a kidney from a deceased donor to become available wait three to five years. 

For patients with kidney disease that requires a kidney transplant, finding a live donor is considered the best option. Living donation is when a living person donates an organ (or part of an organ) to another person for transplantation. Living donors are often relatives but can be anyone that meets donor and matching criteria. 

Trisha, with two perfectly functioning kidneys and no family history of kidney problems, thought to herself at that very moment- why not me? ​“I had no idea about living donation, I never heard of it,” Trisha said thinking back to Manny’s post. 

“I told my parents, I’ve made a decision and there’s nothing you can say or do to change my mind. One of my friends is on a kidney transplant list. I don’t know exactly how old he is. I don’t know how long he’s been on a transplant list. I don’t know why he’s on a transplant list. There’s a lot of Manny’s story that I don’t know at this point. All I know is that he needs a kidney and I’m getting tested to see if I can do it. And both of my parents smiled and said, ​‘okay!’ and they supported me.”

And from that moment forward, Trisha was determined to help Manny any way she could. Her sights were set on giving him a kidney, but didn’t want to get his hopes up by telling him too early.

“He’s a good guy. One of the best humans I have ever met. If this works and he gets to continue on living his life, it’s worth it,” Trisha recalls. ​“It actually went really fast. I was not expecting the whole process to go as quickly as it did from the time that I contacted them to the time that they told me I was a match.”

Trisha was able to complete the first round of testing at Ivinson before making a trip to the UCHealth Transplant Center at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado. 

“I went to the Aurora campus so that I could actually meet the transplant team. They did a whole bunch of lab work. CAT scans, x‑rays, EKGs, they did pretty much everything under the sun.”

For 10 days, Trisha patiently waited for her results to come in. 

“I got the phone call that following Monday,” Trish recounted the relief. She was a match. ​“I quite literally cried when they told me that I was approved.”

There was just one more thing Trisha needed to do. She needed to tell Manny the good news. Enlisting the help of Ivinson security and friends in the Emergency Department, Trisha had found the perfect, cheesy way to spill the beans.

“They called me in to the hospital on my day off,” Manny recounted of that unusual day. ​“When I turned around, my donor was there, ready to tell me that we were a match. She was holding a note saying we’re matched and she was holding a bag of kidney beans.” 

Between laughter and tears, the two new friends shared in an embrace that lasted forever. Manny was getting a kidney, and getting his life back.

Trading Places

On May 31, 2023, Manny and Trisha went into Anschutz, ready to swap some organs. Manny was almost late. Filled with nerves, he got lost in Anschutz on his way to pre-op. Trisha, who had never had any surgery of any kind, was just taking it all in, simultaneously nervous and excited. The friends didn’t talk much that morning. Taking in information from doctors, sitting in excitement and nerves, they quietly wheeled into life changing surgery. 

Despite their different backgrounds, one thing Manny and Trisha shared was their strong belief in their faith. Throughout his dialysis and medical journey, Manny still attended his church regularly and so did Trisha. Preparing for surgery, Trisha turned to faith again to guide her through. 

“I went to church, like my normal Sunday thing. But obviously this Sunday was different,” Trisha said of asking for prayers for her and Manny. At church they asked Trisha to pray and find a verse that spoke to her and to carry that verse with her through surgery.

‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’ John 15:13

“One verse kept coming to my mind throughout the days leading up to surgery. Among other things, while being wheeled into the OR, I kept repeating that verse, and thinking about what it could possibly mean,” Trisha recalled.

Several hours and one successful surgery later, Trisha and Manny were on the road to recovery. When they both discharged, they celebrated by ringing the transplant bell, a symbol of celebration and ringing in the new journey this transplant would allow each of them. 

“The fact that this type of process is even possible, that you can take an organ out of

one human, stick it in another human and save that human’s life, blows my mind,” Trisha said afterward. ​“It’s one of those things you see in the movies and you hear stories about it. But it never really hits you. That’s how things were for me through this process until they called me and said ​‘You’re approved.’ Suddenly it became incredibly personal, like this is now MY life.”

Trisha’s kidney has given life to Manny and to those that are closest to him. 

“This kidney is helping me see a new look in life,” Manny said post-surgery. ​“I consider myself fairly positive, but the new kidney really puts things into perspective. I still stress about things, but I let it go very fast because I’m not in a chair getting my blood pumped to a machine anymore, so it puts life into a very different perspective.”

For Manny and Trisha, life is anything but back to ​‘normal’, it’s better. Trisha is now working full-time as a photographer and will still pick up shifts at Ivinson on occasion. She is not missing her kidney one bit. 

Manny, not one to stay down or out, excelled at recovery and was eager to get his life back. 

“He went and ran a Tough Mudder. He can now go back down to Mexico to see his mom. He can do all of these things,” Trisha said. ​“The fact that I played a part in that, it’s the biggest blessing I can possibly imagine.”

Manny is back to working the halls of Ivinson, helping the kids at Indian Paintbrush Elementary and you will often see him working his hardest at the gym. Now that his health is improving he has plans to return to school and (once given the all clear from his medical team), maybe skydiving.

Become a Living Donor

Manny’s story would not be possible without the option of living donation and friends like Trisha. 

“You never think about being a living donor until the option is right in front of you.” Trisha said. ​“My life didn’t change that much. The impact that this can have on somebody, both as a donor and a recipient is far greater than anything you can possibly imagine.”

In 2022, 42,887 organ transplants were performed in the U.S. setting an annual record, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN). It also marked the first time ever that more than 25,000 kidney transplants were performed in the states. 

“If you are interested in donating, try it. Go get tested. You can do it whether you know who you’re donating to, or you can do it anonymously. Taking a physical piece of yourself and giving it to somebody, that seems like a huge, terrifying sacrifice, but what you get from that is worth more. I gave a physical part of me to somebody. Most of the time, I don’t even notice it’s gone. But what it meant to him and his family, what it gave me in return, and being able to move thousands of others up the transplant list will forever be worth so much more.” 

To learn more about living donation or other organ donation options, visit https://​www​.kid​ney​.org/​t​r​a​n​s​p​l​a​n​t​a​t​i​o​n​/​h​o​w​-​t​o​-​d​onate .