It’s not often that students get to be heroes to their teachers. For English teacher Carol Oswalt, that’s exactly what happened when a former student stepped up and offered to donate a kidney.
“It’s pretty amazing,” she said while tearing up. “I loved her when I had her as a student. I just never thought that little girl would grow up to be my hero.”
Oswalt has dealt with kidney issues for most of her life, having around 40 stones since college. After a particularly bad stone in 2014 that blocked her kidney, Oswalt found that she was in stage four kidney disease.
Thankfully, through medication, Oswalt said she was able to keep her disease around stage three or four for years, but it was a bout of COVID in 2020 that pushed her straight into stage five.
“I was in kidney failure when I went in for my regular checkup in January,” she explained. “And he said, ‘Oh, you’ll come back. We’ve seen tons of patients that got COVID and it just takes time.’ But it didn’t come back.”
In August 2021, Mrs. Oswalt was referred to the transplant center at Integris Baptist, though it took a few months to get her first appointment. She didn’t officially make the transplant list until 2022. Oswalt said she was told that in Oklahoma, it could take up to five years to receive a kidney if you didn’t have a live donor. This was compounded by the fact that she has Type O blood.
“Type O people can only take a kidney from a Type O person. But Type O people can give to anyone, and so that makes it a shortage,” she said. “But I managed to stay off dialysis until 2023.”
Oswalt said throughout this time, she kept active. She was still teaching at Chandler High School. Still hiking with her husband and going kayaking or cycling. Mrs. Oswalt was also able to do dialysis at home while she slept, using a new process called peritoneal dialysis.
However, her search for a new kidney was hitting dead ends. Her husband and sisters weren’t a match. Neither was her daughter-in-law. Oswalt’s doctor pushed her to try everything, including posting on social media.
“That was very hard for me to do that… a lot of people didn’t know,” she said. But she made a post anyway.
And that’s when her former student - who wishes to remain anonymous reached out and asked what she needed to do.
“It makes me cry every time I think about it,” Oswalt said.
The student took all the necessary steps and in May 2022, they found out she was a match. After going through another round of testing in July, the student was given the all-clear to donate her left kidney.
“She’s actually the one who told me,” Oswalt said. “I was sitting in class when I read the text. I think I screamed something and ran out of the room. She’s just an amazing, amazing person. And I feel like I’ve gained a daughter.”
Both Mrs. Oswalt and her donor are doing well after the surgeries just a few weeks ago. Oswalt said she’s never seen her numbers this good. She’s looking forward to getting back into the classroom on March 4, saying she enjoys her students. “They really do keep you young.”
Teachers and students at Chandler High School are looking forward to having Mrs. Oswalt back as well, according to Cynthia Snider, also a teacher. However, before that, they are hosting a special dinner to raise money to help with some of Mrs. Oswalt’s expenses.
It will be on Feb. 21 at The First Christian Church from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. They’ll serve soup, stew, chili and dessert, said Snider. There’s no need to buy tickets, but they will be taking donations at the door. The dinner is being organized by Oswalt’s fellow teachers. Snider said if anyone would like to make any donations - whether it’s cash or food - they can leave a message at the high school office.