LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Hours before Debbie Lockard was discharged from the hospital, there's only one word she used over and over again.

"I'm grateful for another day," Lockard said. "I'm grateful to getting another chance at life."

Just a few days after a kidney transplant, she's ready to go home.

"I just never thought this day would come, and it's here, so I'm happy," she said.

Lockard suffered with kidney disease for nearly 35 years. A few years ago, her kidneys were only working at 14%. She was put on the donor list, and her sister was a match.

Joyce Godfrey donated her kidney on Tuesday.

"Everything's just changed," Lockard said. "My whole feeling and energy levels just changed immediately." 

She said as soon as she woke up, she could feel a difference. Her body took to the kidney well and her levels were already back to normal.

"As soon as we come out and they hook me up to everything, my blood pressure was normal, my creatinine was normal," Lockard said. "I don't have to take the phosphorus no more. I don't have to be on a special diet. No special foods. Everything just went back to 34 years ago."

She's been dealing with kidney disease since she was 25 years old, passing hundreds of kidney stones two to three times a week and taking 54 pills a day.

"Joyful but overwhelming," Lockard explained. "It was something I've been waiting for for a long time, and I didn't really know that I could feel any different, but I feel different."

Her new normal won't have any kidney stones. Now, she'll be able to live her life.

"I'm forever grateful for Joyce," Terry Lockard, Debbie's husband, said. "She'll always be in my heart, always."

Joyce got to go home the day after surgery. After a big donor walk at Jewish Hospital, she's recovering well.

"A little sore," Debbie said. "More sore than me, but they said that's to be expected because they're taking something from her, so her body's gonna shift to a different level, but she's still healthy as can be."

She's grateful for her sister and grateful for getting her life back.

"There's so much that I want to do, so much that I couldn't do before that I'm just ready to start living my life again," Lockard said.

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. 

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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