Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Mom, daughter turn kidney failure into graduation success

Lena Wright will never forget the precise moment a test result threatened to devastate her life.

"January 5, 1998, at 1 a.m.," she said.

It had nothing to do with academics. School always came easy for the Mojave High School salutatorian, who graduates today among the Clark County School District's Class of 2001.

Wright's test was a simple blood test.

"I was feeling lethargic and was throwing up a lot," she said.

Doctors at a local hospital emergency room began trying to find out what was wrong.

"The toxin levels in my blood were so high, they could not believe it," Wright said. "They said the test results must have been a mistake."

The results changed with another blood test. This time, the toxins were even higher.

Wright was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure. The condition was attributed to a birth defect that caused her kidneys to be too small.

"It hit just like that," she said, balling her hand in a fist and driving it into her other palm.

Lena's mother, Laura Wright, called it the most life-altering event in their lives.

She stayed nearby, watching her daughter get caught in a whirlwind of IV's and X-rays, more medical tests, a hospital stay in intensive care and painful dialysis treatments.

Almost immediately, the search for a kidney donor began.

Through it all, the younger Wright had one question.

"I wanted to know when I could go back to school," she said. "It's always been so important to me."

Wright spent a small part of her sophomore year on the school district's homebound program, which "stunk" she said, because she couldn't be around her classmates and had to drop her favorite class, chemistry.

"My mom went to school and picked up all of my books," Wright said. "The teachers call you and talk to you for awhile on the telephone. Then you do your homework and mail it in. I had to drop chemistry because that is one class you cannot do over the phone."

She returned to Mojave High School in her junior year and even was able to make up chemistry.

Wright remained on dialysis and pushed herself through days at school while she had headaches and was "just not feeling well."

"My friends are cool," Wright said. "Through it all, they never treated me any differently. Some of them asked me questions. They were just curious about what was going on."

The greatest test -- and the greatest risk -- however, was still to come.

A year of intensive medical testing had produced a perfect match for Wright's kidney transplant.

Doctors announced it was her mother.

Without hesitation, the two began planning for the surgeries.

From the beginning, Wright said, her family supported the transplant so that she would not have to endure a lifetime of dialysis treatments.

The transplant surgery, which was deemed a success, took place one year ago, in the summer following Wright's junior year.

"The biggest risk was to her," Laura Wright said. "The major risk was that her body could reject the kidney at any time. It was nothing to me. I was up and going and back to work in three weeks."

The biggest academic mark the major illness had on Wright's high school career was a single 'B' on her straight-A record.

Although she still enjoys golfing, Wright had to give up one of her biggest passions, horseback riding. And she won't be traveling out of state to attend college like many of her friends.

Wright will attend UNLV and plans to major in chemistry. Her career plans are undecided at this time.

"We want her at home for another two years, just so we can watch her and see how she's doing," Wright's mother said. "Then she can go anywhere she wants."

Her daughter smiled and nodded in agreement.

"All of this has really made me grow up a lot," she said.

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