by Janice Gibbs | Medical Writer

Published: August 1, 2009

HARKER HEIGHTS - Ora Carter has good days and bad days.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Carter has dialysis and it wears her out. Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends she's usually feeling better, but there are no guarantees.

Carter, 52, has a hereditary kidney disease - two brothers have died from it.

She's had one kidney transplant and is expecting to have another by the end of September. The second transplant will be performed at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

The first kidney transplant took place in the late 1990s, but Carter's body rejected it within three weeks. She also has a clotting disorder, which makes treatment all the more complicated.

"I've got war wounds all over me," Carter said.

Carter has been on dialysis since 1995 and she knows it's taking a toll on her body. Her sight is worsening, her bones are fragile and because she tires so easily, she no longer drives.

Up and down her arms and legs there are bulges and dents under the skin where access to veins for dialysis were attempted. On her right arm alone, Carter has had more than 20 surgeries. Now the point of entry is a port on the right side of her chest.

"I've got tubes everywhere," she said.

Carter will be getting her new kidney from a brother.

The organ donor doesn't pay for any of the medical tests leading up to the surgery or the actual transplant surgery, but he or she is responsible for follow-up care.

"A lot of people would donate," she said, "but they don't have the medical insurance to cover the aftercare."

Carter's brother falls into that category. He just recently completed school and has no health care coverage, but he expects to have a job with health benefits by the time all of the required pre-transplant tests are completed.

Though Carter has moments of utter exhaustion, she's thankful.

"I've done OK, with the help of my friends and family, and most of all God," she said.

Carter's husband, Langston, put a refrigerator and microwave in her bedroom so she doesn't have to come downstairs when she's feeling weak. He also installed an intercom that works throughout the house. She is checked on during the day by a brother who lives just down the street and a close friend who lives a couple of doors down.

Carter's three children were young when she began dialysis and she said her prayer was to live to see her children graduate high school. Once that was accomplished, she modified her prayer, asking to see her children through college and to a point where they could care for themselves.

"Now I have my grandkids, so I'm starting over," Carter said.

At the dialysis center, because of her positive attitude, Carter is one of the patients who help new clients get acclimated. But it wasn't always that way.

Carter said when she first started dialysis it was nonstop weeping.

"I'd pull a blanket over my face and cry," she said. "I couldn't believe I was on a machine . I made myself sick."

Then one day at the dialysis center, a man with one arm and one leg was brought in.

"He was laughing and talking about what a good time he had that weekend," Carter said. "He lit up the unit."

From that point on, Carter became the cheering section for dialysis patients at the center.

She also told her husband she wanted a bigger house and she was going to live each and every day to the fullest.

Carter is an avid gardener, growing pecans, apples, pears, pomegranates, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, bell peppers and more.

She grew up in Texas and Arkansas working in the garden with her father and grandfather. Her husband, originally from New York, doesn't pretend to have her horticulture background.

When the Carters built their house in Harker Heights it was a blank slate, which she promptly filled with trees, flowers, shrubs - anything that would grow.

"It relieves my stress," she said of her hobby.

Her husband, Carter said, complains because mowing around the trees takes lots of additional time.

Looking back at all of the minor surgeries that became major - the failed graft attempts to help in dialysis and other complications brought on by her blood clotting issues - Carter says she can now laugh about all of the health emergencies.

Not surprisingly, Carter has become an organ donor advocate.

Because they have been witness to her struggles, everybody in Carter's family are now registered as organ donors.

A lot of people have offered to donate a kidney to Carter.

"I try to educate them and hook them up with the information," she said. "I meet all kinds of people, it doesn't matter if they're black, white, Asian, anybody who is interested in donating, I tell them to get educated."