‘Pillow pals’ sought to aid dialysis patients

By Taylor Brown

tbrown@yourmvi.com

Dialysis is no fun, but it should be comfortable.

For more than a decade, Amy Michalic has depended on weekly dialysis treatments to keep her alive.

A Monongahela resident, Michalic was born with kidney disease, but wasn’t diagnosed until 2009 when she was having surgery to remove cysts. Before the second procedure, doctors discovered one of her kidneys had shrunk to the size of a raisin and the other was hyperextended.

She had total kidney reconstruction surgery using robotics at UPMC and is now a case study because her condition was so rare.

When doctors discovered the problem more than a decade ago, she was in Stage 4 kidney failure.

In 2019, she was approved to receive a kidney transplant, but being put on the list is only the first step in a long process.

Last year, she was feeling uncomfortable and bleeding more than normal when doctors discovered cancer in her uterus.

She opted to have a full hysterectomy, which was able to remove all the cancer without needed chemotherapy or radiation treatments.

This August she will be cancer free for a year, but hasn’t been put back on the list to receive a kidney.

“I was next in line when I found out about the cancer,” she said. “I was the back up essentially, but because of the cancer I had to be taken off of the list. Now with the cancer gone, I am waiting for all of my tests to come back clear so hopefully I can be put back on soon.”

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