Stories of Hope: Jenny lives with kidney and liver transplant

Jenny Everett Koelsch dealt with migraines in college and her doctors put her on medication. Turns out, it was larger dose than they should’ve given her. Which is how she found herself in the hospital with the possibility of dying.

“They had to put me on life support and they told my family she has 72 hours,” said Koelsch, who is now celebrating the tenth anniversary of both liver and kidney transplants. “About 48 hours into that they found a liver.”

The liver came from from a 63 year-old woman in Phoenix, Arizona. Koelsch later discovered her brother was getting to tested to become her kidney donor. He ended up being a match.

“When my brother gave me his kidney I almost felt kind of like this responsibility to get better fight because you know he’d given me this and I wanted to have him be proud,” said Koelsch.

Koelsch has two happy and spunky twins after using a surrogate mother to carry them, something Koelsch never thought would be possible.

I’ve had a lot of people contribute to my life….a lot of selfless people,”said Koelsch.