A kidney for Kelly

Powell Tribune | Tessa Schweigert
Photo:  Carla Wensky (left) and Kelly Eckerdt are pictured with Wensky’s horses, Gracie (left) and Ringo in December. Dec. 29 marked six months since Wensky donated her kidney to Eckerdt, who has polycystic kidney disease.Tribune photo by Tessa Schweigert

Six months after transplant, ‘everything is fine’

It started with a mouse.

A mouse was drowning in the basin of a toilet, struggling to get his head above the water. Carla Wensky saw the small rodent and didn’t hesitate â€" she rescued him. She then realized that if she couldn’t watch this little mouse die, how could she watch her friend die?

Her friend Kelly Eckerdt had a kidney disease, and without a transplant or dialysis, she eventually would die.

Looking back on it, Wensky says the mouse moment was a turning point. That was when she decided to give Eckerdt her kidney.

“I had prayed for a sign. I think that God gives us signs when we ask for them, and we’re open to them,” Wensky said, noting there has only been one other time when a mouse had made it into her home. “The timing and everything was so perfect.”

A perfect match

Eckerdt was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease around eight years ago. Both of her kidneys were failing gradually. When her kidney function declined to 20 percent, she went on a national donor list.

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