An Orlando teenager can once again eat her favorite foods this Thanksgiving after a life-saving kidney transplant at the AdventHealth Transplant Institute. Jermila Pompey, 18, was discovered to have stage three kidney failure after a school physical in 2017 showed she had abnormally high blood pressure.
“I was still 11. So, it's like, oh my gosh, am I going to die? And I broke down. I was screaming, I didn't know what to do,” Pompey said. She gave up sports and dealt with social anxiety and emotional swings. “Definitely tough. And I just felt myself crying and always giving up all the time. Nothing felt normal to me.”
“I asked God to heal my baby. I knew she was dealing with something that I couldn't do anything about,” said her mother, Keenya Davis.
The first Thanksgiving after her diagnosis, Davis says things got worse. That’s when doctors broke the news about a restrictive diet.
“No yams. Too high in potassium! No fried foods. No high potassium vegetables or fruits. I was angry,” Pompey said. “I don't care what anybody says, yams are the best thing, my favorite thing to eat!”
“She was upset. She was angry with everyone,” Davis said.
A few weeks before Pompey’s 18th birthday the family found a path to hope when her doctors referred her to AdventHealth Transplant Institute, Orlando’s only solid-organ transplant program, where she was placed on the kidney transplant waiting list.
“Her kidney function was about 20% of what it should have been for a teenager,” said Dr. Thomas Chin, kidney transplant medical director at the AdventHealth Transplant Institute.
Three weeks after her 18th birthday, Jermila received her transplant – a new kidney.
“I was praying, praying, praying, always been like that, and He gave me what I needed,” said Pompey. “I feel like a new person, and I am a new person.”
And for the first time in a very long time, she can look forward to Thanksgiving dinner with a smile on her face.
“Seven years since [I was] diagnosed with this and now I'm going to have a normal Thanksgiving. It’s my first normal Thanksgiving in seven years, I'm very happy,” she said. “I'm very excited to have some yams, and I think I'm going to have all types too. I don't care if they’re cut up, smashed, marshmallows or not. Just give me them on a plate. I don't care about the meat or the sides, just give me the yams!”
More than 100,000 men, women, and children are currently waiting for a lifesaving transplant in the U.S. according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Florida residents can sign up to be an organ donor at https://www.donatelifeflorida.org.