When Marisol Inglis was adopted by a Lafayette family at the age of 13, it was like being rescued, she said.
"I didn't have the best upbringing," Inglis said. "I didn't have safety or security, and I didn't know what that was until I came here."
More than 20 years later, Inglis' adopted family is once again coming to her rescue and saving her life in the process.
Inglis was 16 years old when a doctor first told her there was a problem with her kidneys, although the news didn't make quite the impression it should have.
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"I didn't take it seriously because as a teenager, you don't really think about the future," Inglis said.
Twenty years later, however, Inglis got a message from a doctor she couldn't shrug off.
"I got a phone call from my nephrologist basically saying, ‘Hey, you have a year to find a kidney. You can try dialysis, but [I] highly recommend you get that kidney,’” Inglis said.
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Fortunately for Inglis, she had a family member more than willing to donate a kidney: her sister, Zoe. Unfortunately, because they were not biologically related and of different ethnicities, the chances of Zoe and Marisol being a match were slim.
Still, there was the option of participating in a "chain" donation. In that case, a willing donor who isn't a match (Zoe) would donate her kidney to a stranger. That would then start a string of stranger-to-stranger donations until one of those strangers is a match for Marisol.
With that in mind, Zoe began the process of testing to find a match. When a coordinator called to say she was a match for Marisol after all, Zoe expressed confusion.
"The coordinator was very confused as to why I was so confused because she was like, 'Well, you're siblings, there's like a 25% chance,'" Zoe said. "I was like, 'No, you don't understand. We're non-bio siblings, and my sister is not even white.'"
“I think we both started crying after the phone call and during the phone call just because I didn't think it was going to happen,” Marisol said.
She said that she would be able to see her children grow up, which she did not think she would be able to do with her previous condition.
“What are the odds? How is it that I came to be here at the right moment to be adopted by the family that I am adopted? For them to have a child that would eventually end up being my perfect match, it's quite a journey,” Marisol said.
