Kidney Transplant Brings Two Sisters Together at Saint Luke’s

Ileana Avalos had been through this once before.  

In 2003, she was 23 and just two years into her career as a scheduling assistant at Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City. She was also pregnant with her first child, but a severe case of eclampsia left her with scar tissue on her right kidney and in need of a kidney transplant. Ileana’s mother was a match and donated one of her kidneys at Saint Luke’s Hospital in a process known as living organ donation. Her mother could live a healthy life with one kidney, and Ileana’s new kidney carried her through more than a decade of making new memories with her family.  

So when Ileana’s blood work showed signs of kidney failure in early 2017, she knew what to expect—and where to turn.  

“They told me I could expect to get 10 to 20 years with my mom’s kidney,” she says. “I always knew I would need another transplant one day.”  

The right match

Once again, Ileana turned to her colleagues at Saint Luke’s Hospital Abdominal Transplant & Multi-Specialty Clinic to begin the process and get on the wait list for a living kidney donor. Organs from a living donor typically offer better health outcomes than those from a deceased donor, and Saint Luke’s is home to some of the region’s most experienced transplant surgeons. After two years on the waiting list, Ileana began to quietly wonder if one of her family members could be a match.  

Ileana’s younger sister, 36-year-old Daisy Gunter, had the same thought.  

Not wanting to get her sister’s hopes up, Daisy signed up to get tested in secret. And when the tests showed that she was a perfect match, she couldn’t wait to share the news.

“They say siblings aren’t usually a match, but I knew how long Ileana had been waiting,” Daisy says. “If I could be a match, I wanted to do that for her.”

The right team

On March 15, 2019—almost 16 years to the date after her first kidney transplant—Ileana got another.  

“The surgery went smoothly, and the whole transplant team was outstanding,” Ileana says. “I could not ask for a better team to take care of me and my sister.”  

By the next morning, Ileana was up and moving, even walking to Daisy’s room to check on her. It was a small moment that said everything about who she is: a loving sister who always looks out for others.  

But Ileana isn’t the only caregiver in the family.  

Daisy remembers being in sixth grade and visiting her mom and sister in the hospital during Ileana’s first transplant. Inspired by the care and compassion of the team at Saint Luke’s Hospital, Daisy saw a future for herself. Fast forward to today, and Daisy is celebrating 14 years at Saint Luke’s, where is she is now a patient nurse navigator at the Saint Luke’s Michael & Marlys Haverty Cardiometabolic Center of Excellence.  

“As I got older, that experience of visiting them in the hospital really stuck with me,” Daisy says. “I knew I wanted to spend my life caring for others.”  

The right message

Today, Daisy and Ileana live perfectly normal lives just down the street from one another. Ileana is back to work at Saint Luke’s and has more than enough energy to keep up with her family. The transplant experience has left them both grateful and determined. Having seen the process from every perspective, they’re passionate about raising awareness of living organ donation in Latino communities.  

“Latinos are statistically one of the smallest groups of organ donors,” Daisy says. “A lot of that comes from a lack of information. They don’t hear the donor’s side of the story or how you can live a very normal life with one kidney. It scares them away, and we want to change that.”  

Daisy and Ileana hope their story will inspire more people to consider living kidney donation—whether it’s to help a loved one or someone they’ve never met. Because as they’ve seen time and again, one decision can change everything.  

Learn more about living kidney donation and how to become a donor.  

About Saint Luke’s Transplant Team

Saint Luke’s is a leader in kidney transplantation—performing the first successful kidney transplant in the Kansas City area in 1969 and the first living kidney donation surgery via laparoscopy in the region. The Saint Luke's kidney transplant team is one of the most experienced programs in the region, having performed more than 2,500 transplants with below-average wait times and strong patient outcomes. Learn more about our kidney transplant team.