MONTCALM COUNTY, Mich. — Jackie Thayer loves spending time with her husband and four kids, especially in the outdoors. They hike, fish, mushroom hunt and deer hunt together.
“I want them to have the memories,” Thayer said during an interview with Fox 17 on Tuesday. “So, if something does happen to me they have the memories to look back on be like ‘Well, my mom did all of this with us.’”
Her house in Fenwick is decorated with pictures of all the fun they’ve had. She hopes to make more memories that turn into pictures especially after doctors told her that she needs a new kidney.
“My kids losing their mom,” Thayer paused as tears filled her eyes, “that’s the scariest.”
Thayer can’t imagine her kids, three girls and a boy, growing up without her.
According to @KidneyMI over 2,000 people in Michigan are waiting for a “life-saving transplant.”
— Lauren Edwards (@LaurenEdwardsTV) February 1, 2023
Jackie Thayer, a 37yo mom of four, is one of them.
She needs a kidney. She shared her story with @FOX17 pic.twitter.com/NzxreVWmIt
Thayer has autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. She was diagnosed at 16 years old after she went to the doctor’s office with excruciating back pain.
“They found cysts on my kidneys,” Thayer recalled. “[They] said ‘yes you have it’ and to watch what I eat and try not to buy packaged, pre-packaged food, to eat a lot of home-cooked meals and things like that.”
So, she did. She began gardening and fell in love with it. She grew fresh fruit and vegetables, which helped to preserve her kidney function, she said.
Thayer thought she was doing fine until she had her kidneys checked again in October 2022 and the doctor delivered devastating news.
“You need to go see your kidney doctor right away,” Thayer recalled. “Your function is 13 percent.”
Thayer couldn’t believe it. She was in denial for weeks, she said, until she saw the test results. Then she immediately changed up her diet again this time cutting out protein completely. She went on a “lettuce diet,” ultimately losing 20 pounds.
“Scary, very scary. You just don’t know,” Thayer said about her journey. “Then a friend of mine said whether you’re sick or not nobody is guaranteed tomorrow. So, we had to look at it like that and that’s how I keep looking at it. I try not to think about it because death is scary, especially when you’re really young.”
Thayer is 37-years-old. Doctors cleared her to be on the organ recipient list, after multiple tests and meetings. However, she said she’s likely to receive a kidney in 5-7 years. According to the National Kidney Foundation, 2,000 people in Michigan are waiting to receive an organ.
So, in an effort to speed up the process she put a post on Facebook and reached out to Fox 17 in hopes that someone somewhere donates one of their kidneys to her.
“We only have to have one to live. You don’t have to have both of them,” Thayer said. “I would like to live a little bit longer of a life and not have to be on dialysis because dialysis is really rough on your body.”
She said dialysis is hard on the heart. So, she's holding off on that option for as long as possible.
Her hope is that a kidney will come soon. If not, she hopes her story inspires others to consider becoming organ donors.
Both would be a miracles.
“It’s really helpful to donate whether it be a living donor or to get it on your driver’s license so that if something ever happens to you that you can help somebody out there because I’m not the only one that needs it,” Thayer said. “I think there’s like a few thousand people in Michigan that need a transplant whether it be a kidney, a liver, a heart, you just never know. And, everybody deserves to have a chance at life, to keep going.”
