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This Thing Called Life is a podcast dedicated to acts of giving, kindness, compassion, and humanity. Host Andi Johnson introduces you to powerful organ, tissue, and eye donation stories from individuals, families, and front-line healthcare teams. These stories are meant to inspire and remind you that while life can be challenging and unpredictable, it’s also incredibly beautiful. We hope this podcast inspires you to connect with our life-saving and life-healing mission.
Episodes
Tuesday Sep 14, 2021
Tuesday Sep 14, 2021
During this episode of This Thing Called Life podcast, host Andi Johnson talks with Karyn Frost. This Thing Called Life introduces you to powerful stories about organ, eye, and tissue donation from individuals, families, and health care teams whose experiences will inspire you and remind you that while life is hard, unpredictable, and imperfect, but also beautiful. Tune in to hear Karyn’s story!
Episode Highlights:
- Karyn is living a very normal life. She and her husband of over 20 years just dropped off their oldest at a college. However, a part of Karyn's story has shifted some things for her.
- At Ohio State, Karyn met her husband, Damon Frosty, who is from Cincinnati. They have two children, two daughters, one as Andy mentioned, is a freshman at Tennessee State University in Nashville and the second one is a junior in high school at Indian Hill High School.
- When Karyn was a sophomore in college, she was diagnosed with lupus. It can impact many different organs in the body, and she was lucky enough that lupus impacted her kidneys.
- Karyn's kidneys were not functioning properly, but they weren't terrible or in need of dialysis or a transplant; It was just one of those situations where they said, "we are going to watch this."
- Andi asks, "Did your doctor at that time talk about the possibility of needing a transplant at some point?"
- Andi inquires, "You mentioned a family history of diabetes. Did anyone in your family ever need a kidney transplant because of diabetes?" Karyn affirms, her father received a kidney donation 15 years ago. It lasted for about five years, and then he had to go back on dialysis, but he did receive a kidney transplant.
- There are a lot of things you have to do after you receive a transplant which some are not prepared for. There are other people who can't get a transplant for financial reasons because that is a big part of it. You have to be able to afford the medication, and Medicare doesn't cover everything.
- Karyn has been on dialysis since May 2018, and honestly, she should have been on dialysis since 2016 because that is when her doctor noticed that her blood work in her physical exams and the biopsies indicated that she needed to start dialysis.
- When you have a certain level of toxins in your body, your body just decides if your kidneys can't get rid of it, we are going to get rid of it one way or another, says Karyn.
- Karyn has a lot of people around to support her; between immediate and extended family and people in organizations that she is a part of.
- Most of the people on the kidney and organ donation lists who are waiting for transplants are people of color. So, we need to have the organizations that were part of be supportive and joining the fight, says Karyn.
- Karyn has heard people say that they are not going to save her because they want her organs. She is interested in the statistics on how many African Americans agree when they are renewing their license to be registered.
- Andi asks, "Do you think that part of the issue with chronic kidney disease is that it's one of those conditions where you know it is there, but if it is not really impacting your day-to-day life?"
- As young people, we are naturally more self-centered, and she is much more focused on helping others.
- Karyn wanted to tell her story to get awareness for herself but also to get awareness for other people.
- Andi asks, "If someone is interested in being tested to be your kidney donor, how might they go about that?"
3 Key Points:
- Karyn's doctor mentally prepared her for what she was dealing with today, so it wasn't like a shock. And one day, he just said, "Hey, you are going to do dialysis. He did a good job of preparing me for it."
- Karyn shares details about her body's way or your kidney's way of saying help. Her kidneys were not functioning, so all those toxins stayed in her body anytime she ate or drank anything. They weren't being filtered out.
- "If you could tell your younger self, having a great time at The Ohio State University and also just starting to realize that there are some medical issues that are going to be a part of your life, what would you say to that, Karyn?" asks Andi.
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