“The next thing I remember is being wheeled into an ER room and coming out with a catheter in my chest and my arm being wrapped up due to a fistula being placed in it,” she recalls. “January 20, 2000, was my first dialysis treatment.”

For the next seven years, Tangela did in-center dialysis and everything else she could to keep her life in order. Her attitude was “My kidneys are sick, everything else still works!” Unable to meet the demands of a job in finance, she went back to school and earned a computer science degree. To stay active, she coached her girls’ sports teams (basketball, cheer, track, swimming, you name it) and chaperoned as many field trips as possible. She also became a substitute teacher at her daughters’ school.

At the clinic she made four close friends, and together they would talk, dialyze, socialize, and support one another. To staff, they were minor celebrities. “We became the ‘Fab 5’ of the clinic,” Tangela recounts. “They loved us.”

Despite her best efforts to remain positive, Tangela battled depression and had a health episode at the clinic that left her with severe anxiety. She struggled to find a treatment schedule that worked for her and her family, and grew weary losing precious moments and family time to dialysis and driving. Seeing her challenges, the clinic manager offered Tangela an opportunity to learn about more frequent home hemodialysis (HHD) with the NxStage System One. She could be the first patient at her clinic to try it.

“She gave me all the good points,” says Tangela. “That I’d likely be able to travel more, be able to dialyze when I wanted to, morning or evening.” The downside? She would have to self-cannulate. At first, Tangela was reluctant (in her own words, “No way!”), but eventually decided to try it.

In her second week of training, Tangela learned to self-cannulate and says she laughed out loud when the needle went in. “I thought, ‘This is what you were so scared of?’ At that moment I knew I had my life back.”

With more frequent HHD, Tangela experienced a major shift. Her doctor said she could go off blood pressure pills and reduce her binders to one. She felt less anxiety. She took a new job with a tutoring company. When coaching, she could physically show teams what to do instead of just tell them. A self-regulated dialysis schedule meant an easier time balancing work, family and social calendars. And with newfound energy and a cycler that could make the journey, Tangela began traveling more.

Five more years passed and, as good as she felt, Tangela was facing the reality of a dozen years as a dialysis patient. She was getting burned out and remembers thinking and praying “God I’m tired and I need a miracle.”

In June 2012, there was hopeful news. University of Alabama Medical Center called. They had a kidney. But after rounds of testing, it turned out not to be a match. “I got home and I was just mad at the world,” says Tangela. “I said, ‘I can’t believe this. I got my hopes up and it didn’t happen.”’

A few months later, Tangela and her girls were coming home from cheerleading practice when UAB called again. “I wasn’t even going to go,” remembers Tangela. “I thought ‘I don’t want to be disappointed again. Let someone else have it.’” But her daughter wasn’t about to let mom off the hook. She said “Oh no, you’re going. You’re next in line for a miracle, and you’re going.”

She went.

After more tests and some college sports trash-talking with the nurses, Tangela was braced for bad news, but it never came. The next words she heard were “We have found the perfect kidneys for you and we’ll start surgery in 45 minutes.”

Shocked at the news that she’d be getting not one, but two new kidneys, Tangela and her mom celebrated and cried. But she says she “immediately went from joy to empathy and felt sorrow for the family (of her donor).” As she was rolled into the OR, Tangela made peace with the idea that she was receiving a gift and began “thanking God and praying for the family.”

Seven years later, Tangela remains a healthy transplant patient and, as a NxStage Patient Advocate, is “leaving her mark” by helping others learn about treatment options and self-advocacy.

Regarding transplantation, Tangela explored getting listed in multiple states and clinics and she encourages candidates to do the research and find out their options. “Every clinic has different requirements.”

Published April 2020

Home hemodialysis with NxStage systems involves risks, and you may not experience the potential benefits of such therapy. NxStage systems require a prescription for use. If your doctor prescribes more frequent therapy, your vascular access is exposed to more frequent use which may lead to access related complications, including infection of the site. Patient Advocates are compensated for their time.

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