LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- An estimated 12 people die every day while waiting for a kidney transplant. But for one southern Indiana woman, her donor was closer than she thought.

Sitting with sisters Debbie Lockard and Joyce Godfrey for just a few minutes, there's a ton of jokes and laughter. But behind their smiles are years of pain.

"Used to be a lot more painful than it is now," said Lockard, who was diagnosed with renal tubular acidosis when was just 25 years old. "I got down on the ground and I couldn't move."

Renal tubular acidosis is a kidney disease that causes hundreds of kidney stones.

"People think kidney disease is, it's just a kidney disease. They don't look at it as something that can take your life, but it can," Lockard said.

Over the past 35 years, it's gotten worse. It reached the point where Lockard needed to take 54 pills a day and passed kidney stones two to three times a week.

"I was put on different medications, different diets, different this, different that, trying to get things under control," she said.

More than 10 years ago, doctors told Lockard the only way to get better was to have a kidney transplant. But some people sit on the waiting list for years before they get a match.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, an estimated 12 people die while waiting for a life-saving transplant. In 2021, 786,000 people were living with kidney failure, but less than 25,000 of them received a transplant that year, the Foundation said. 

Lockard said she never got her hopes up. But her match ended up being closer than she thought, when her sister called her and said she would give her a kidney.

"I didn't really think about it," said Joyce Godfrey. "It's something I have that I don't need, and something she has to have."

That phone call left Lockard with a feeling of disbelief. 

"Very, very emotional. I don't think I talked for two hours," she said. "I didn't talk to her (Godfrey), my daughter, my husband, I can remember him saying 'She's fine, she's crying.' I just cried for probably two hours."

After suffering for more than 35 years, Lockard now has a second chance at life.

"I'm not really doing anything that I don't think most people would do, but I'm just grateful that I can do it, that I'm healthy enough," said Godfrey.

The transplant surgeries are scheduled for next Tuesday, Jan. 16.

For information about living organ donation, click here. For information about finding out if you're qualified to donate a kidney, click here.

For information about becoming an organ donor in Kentucky, click here. For information about becoming an organ donor in Indiana, click here.

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