Patient set to receive kidney from her friend following a long dialysis journey

NEW HANOVER, NC (WWAY) — 28-year-old Sydney Mathis and 42-year-old Stephanie Daniels have been friends for years.  

Sydney was born with Polycystic Kidney Disease, which runs through her mom’s side of the family.  

After giving birth to her daughter in 2019, she struggled with Covid-like symptoms, and those symptoms were finally diagnosed as another disease. 

“It was Lupus, but at that point, my kidneys had completely failed, it had attacked my heart, I had close to 70 extra pounds of fluid on, so kind of ever since then we’ve just been playing catch-up from the damage that the Lupus did,” said Mathis.  

Sydney has been on dialysis for more than 5 years, transferring back and forth from hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. 

“A year ago, we kind of hit an end of the road for accesses. I probably had about 11 access surgeries just in the time span of three months,” said Mathis.  

She then moved to the last resort and had to have a hero graft put in her right arm.  

After multiple treatments, surgeries, and complications, both of her kidneys were removed in August of this year.  

After being on a deceased transplant list for 5 years, without a single call, doctors told Sydney she would require a living donor transplant.   

Her friend Stephanie says she wasted no time and took a blood test to see if she was a potential donor match. 

“I just went into it thinking, you know, at least I’m trying. Then when it came back that I was a match, it was like ‘Oh! Now, this is scary but then exciting at the same time,” said Daniels.  

Finding out she was a match, donating one of her kidneys was a no brainer.  

“Especially after seeing her having to get her kidneys removed, and I’m like, just knowing that this was the right thing to do,” said Daniels. 

Sydney was in a state of disbelief.  

“My brain like really couldn’t even process it I was just like there’s no way this is happening. I’d convinced myself something was going to go wrong just because it’s been such bad luck, with like, we’ve hit brick walls with everything we’ve tried to do the past 5 years.”  

She is grateful for Stephanie and what she chose to do for her.  

“I would just say, like, just unimaginable was the feeling,” said Mathis.  

Sydney and Stephanie’s surgeries are scheduled for November 12th at Atrium Health in Charlotte.