Local woman searching for new kidney

Leah Claiser-Crawley of Creston has struggled with kidney issues most of her life. While she received a new kidney in 2006, the average lifespan of a kidney from a living donor is 12 to 20 years. Claiser-Crawley has been on the search for a new kidney since 2019, spending the last six years on dialysis to keep her alive.

Claiser-Crawley’s kidney issues stem from glomerulonephritis, a disease that targets the filters in the kidney. This disease came as a complication from a strep throat infection as a child.

“I had spent maybe three or four months in Iowa City and they had taken just a piece of my kidney out,” Claiser-Crawley said. “Through the years, it just gradually had gotten worse.”

In 2006, Claiser-Crawley began tests to see if she was healthy enough for a kidney transplant, including stress tests, EKGs and blood work. Members of her family also began testing to see if they were a match for donation.

“Everybody’s body has six antigens and as long as you can match four out of the six antigens, you can be a donor,” Claiser-Crawley said. “[My mom] matched five. Once they got all the testing back and saw she was a match, they called me and said, you need to come. It was at Mercy at the time and they pretty much just said, let’s get this transplant done.”

Claiser-Crawley went into surgery on Oct. 17, 2006, to receive her mother’s donated kidney. The surgery went well, and while the first month was difficult as her body struggled to accept the new organ, by 2007 Claiser-Crawley was feeling much better.

For the next 15 years, she was able to live a normal life, marrying Scott Crawley and having multiple kids. However, things started to go downhill in 2019. As her donated kidney began shutting down, Claiser-Crawley experienced high blood pressure, constant fatigue and nausea.

“You feel really weak when your kidneys aren’t working because you don’t have the toxins being pumped out of your body. It was devastating,” Claiser-Crawley said. “I had gotten sick and ended up in the hospital, and that’s when they told me that I was going to need dialysis, that my kidneys weren’t working anymore.”

Dialysis is a treatment to remove waste and toxins out of the blood when the kidneys are not able to do it. This is performed at a dialysis center, where blood is taken from the body, pumped through a machine to filter out the toxin and returned to the body.

Claiser-Crawley recieves dialysis three times a week at a center in Greater Regional Health. The process takes three hours and 15 minutes each time.

“It’s basically keeping me alive. Unfortunately, I am not able to work anymore and it’s hard to do things with my family because I feel so weak and fatigued all the time being on dialysis,” Claiser-Crawley said. “It has helped me feel a little bit better once I got used to it, but there’s some days when you still feel really bad after dialysis.”

While surviving off of dialysis, Claiser-Crawley is searching for someone to help her live through donation. Registered on the UnityPoint Health transplant website through Iowa Methodist Medical Center, Claiser-Crawley is tested every year to make sure her body is fit for a transplant.

While her last kidney came as a live donation, that doesn’t mean her next one must be. Many people on the transplant list receive organs from those who have died but agreed to donate their organs. Kidneys from a deceased donor generally last eight to 12 years. However, receiving a kidney while on this list can take a long time.

According to the National Institute of Health, an estimated 17 people die every day while waiting for an organ transplant. In 2020, while more than 90,000 people were on the waiting list, only 22,000 received transplants. For many in need of a transplant, a direct, living donation is the quickest way to go.

For those interested in helping Claiser-Crawley, contact can be made with the UnityPoint Health transplant center at 515-241-4044 or online. Those interested will be interviewed regarding physical and mental health problems and will be tested to see if they have enough of the matching antibodies. Even if they don’t match with Claiser-Crawley, she said a lot of good can be done.

“Just get registered to be an organ donor. If it’s not helping me, it could be helping somebody else,” Claiser-Crawley said. “There’s lots of places that do paired exchanges to where if they’re not a compatible match with me, they could be a compatible match with someone else and then they would find me somebody that’s compatible with, so they do have the paired donations, and the more people that are registered the better.”

Even if unable to help now, there are plenty of ways to support those in need of donations. Next month is National Donate Life Month, which highlights the importance of organ donations, as well as other life-saving donations, like blood.

Ways to get involved:

- Donate blood locally with LifeServe or American Red Cross.

- Give plasma at qualifying locations, which can even result in compensation.

-Sign up for NMDP, formerly known as Be The Match, to register for the bone marrow donation register.

- Register to become an organ donor at a local DMV or online at RegisterMe.org.

- Spread the word! The more eyes a personal story gets, the more likely the right person will see it and register.