Uplifting lives and fostering hope every day
Kiya's Own Words
My Story
When I was 18 years old, back in 2021 I started to take off on my family and run around with my friends on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation thinking I was grown. Thinking I could drink because I'd just turned 18. One night, we ran out of alcohol so we went to a bootlegger and bought a pint thinking it was vodka - but it was rubbing alcohol. Bootleggers would sell it for a easy way to get money telling people its vodka.
An hour later, I was throwing up blood and in so much pain. My mother had to call the ambulance not knowing what I did to myself, because I went home after being gone for days. I was at my grandparents house who I've always ran to because there was no structure there and I could do what I wanted.
By the time I got into the ambulance and transferred to the hospital, my liver was already shutting down my body and my mom was told my liver was at 50% Dr. Burgess from Pine Ridge IHS induced me into a coma and he made the choice to send me to North Dakota to Sandford on October 1st where they kept me alive until they transferred me to Mayo Clinic on October 3rd, on the 8th after 3 days I got put on the national liver transplant list and 3 days in had 3 different livers that came to me but on the fourth day I finally got a liver that was a match for my body.