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Episode Title: Connected by Hope: How Sister Keli and Stephanie Bates Found Friendship Through Transplant
Episode Description:
What happens when two people who have walked through illness, uncertainty, and waiting find each other on the other side of survival?
In this heartfelt episode of This Thing Called Life, host Andi Johnson welcomes Sister Keli and Stephanie Bates, whose connection began through transplant but became something much deeper—a sisterhood built on understanding, resilience, and hope. Together, they share their individual journeys through kidney disease, dialysis, setbacks, and ultimately transplantation.
Through moments of heartbreak, perseverance, and unexpected friendship, Stephanie and Sister Keli reflect on what it means to keep showing up, trust the process, and find purpose in giving back. Their stories are a powerful reminder that healing doesn’t happen alone—and sometimes the people who understand us best are the ones who have walked a similar road.
Episode Highlights
- Host Andi Johnson welcomes Stephanie Bates and Sister Keli, two women whose lives became connected through their shared transplant journeys and commitment to supporting others.
- Stephanie reflects on how her health journey began after a traumatic cesarean delivery in 1999 that caused damage to her kidney.
- Years later, after noticing swelling in her leg, Stephanie sought medical care and was diagnosed with stage three kidney disease, beginning a long season of monitoring and treatment.
- From 2003 to 2013, she managed her condition through regular nephrology care before eventually beginning dialysis as her disease progressed.
- Stephanie shares the difficult but determined process of becoming transplant eligible, including being encouraged to lose weight in order to qualify.
- Through dedication and support, she achieved her health goals and was officially added to the transplant list in 2018.
- In 2019, Stephanie received her first kidney transplant, but unexpected complications during the COVID era eventually led her to undergo a second transplant in 2024.
- Sister Keli shares her own experience of learning her kidneys had progressed into end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and initially struggling to fully accept the seriousness of the diagnosis.
- She reflects on a turning point when conversations and encouragement from people around her helped her recognize the urgency of beginning treatment.
- Sister Keli started with peritoneal dialysis, later transitioning to hemodialysis after complications and challenges with treatment.
- Her journey included major life changes—including divorce and the eventual loss of a limb due to complications connected to inadequate dialysis treatment.
- Despite those setbacks, she remained committed to her health and continued pursuing transplant eligibility.
- Stephanie and Sister Keli describe meeting through a community connection event and immediately sensing a familiar understanding between them.
- What started as an invitation to volunteer quickly developed into a meaningful friendship rooted in shared experience.
- Both women speak openly about how transplant and dialysis journeys can feel isolating—and how finding someone who truly understands can change everything.
- They reflect on the emotional complexity of receiving a transplant call: excitement, disbelief, fear, gratitude, and awareness that another family experienced loss.
- The conversation highlights the emotional and physical realities of transplant while emphasizing the importance of hope, advocacy, and community support.
- Stephanie and Sister Keli encourage listeners to stay committed to treatment plans, ask questions, lean on others, and remember that healing often happens in connection with community.
Key Takeaways:
1. Healing Is More Than Medical—It’s Relational
Recovery isn’t only about procedures and appointments. Community, connection, and shared understanding can become powerful parts of the healing journey.
2. Small Decisions Can Create New Possibilities
From staying committed to dialysis to making lifestyle changes for transplant eligibility, each step forward can open the door to life-changing opportunities.
3. Hope and Gratitude Can Coexist With Hardship
Transplant journeys carry both joy and grief. Receiving a second chance at life often comes with deep appreciation for donors and renewed purpose moving forward.
Tweetable Quotes
“You have to be in a certain BMI to receive a transplant. The doctor connected me with weight loss people, we got a weight loss plan together, and I dropped that weight. Then less than six months after I dropped that weight, I was listed.”
- Stephanie Bates
“I feel like the Lord started sending people to talk to me. You get a call from somebody that you haven't heard from in a while, and they have a message for you. And so these people over the weekend started talking to me, and I said, "Oh no,” I said, "This is serious.” And so I reported, and they put me on peritoneal dialysis.”
- Sister Keli
“This is why I'm here now, speaking out to people and letting them know, take your treatments seriously, don't cut off your treatments, don't skip your treatments, because the after effect of that? Sometimes you can't even come back from it.”
- Sister Keli
“I'm like, something is familiar about her. And then I come to find her birthdays around my birthday, we just were familiar and able to link, but more than that, she understood where I had been, and I understood where she had been, and that was something I didn't have with any of my other friends.”
- Sister Keli
“It (bond they share) creates a sense of like, “So there is someone who knows exactly what I'm going through.” Now our stories are not entirely the same. We've been through the same types of situations, the waiting process, “Is the kidney ever coming in?”, all the procedures, and all the testing. It feels daunting, it feels overwhelming.”
- Stephanie Bates
Resources:
https://www.networkforhope.org/
https://www.networkforhope.org/about-us/
https://www.networkforhope.org/stories-of-hope/
https://www.facebook.com/NetworkForHopeOPO
