Alive and kicking

Yordy pursues a black belt following kidney transplant

Published Thursday, May 8, 2008

By Brandon Evans

Cheryle Yordy has undergone a strange combination of bad luck balanced by fortunate outcomes.

Her light blue eyes reveal a wisdom that can only be gained by suffering a certain amount of pain. But they also reveal optimism and hope because she has survived the many trials she has faced.

Yordy, of Bridgeport, counts herself lucky to be alive. She's missing more organs than a turkey waiting to be stuffed on Thanksgiving morning.

"I'm ectomied out," Yordy said. "I'm about out of all the organs I can live without."

This truck driver is not joking.

In her 37 years, Yordy has undergone a hysterectomy, a splenectomy, gallbladder removal, five hernia repairs, a cesarean section, gastric bypass surgery and has been treated for ulcers.

But despite all this, Yordy is in the best physical shape of her life. She also possesses more self-confidence than she can ever recall. And this is after her latest and most life-threatening ailment, IgA nephropathy, otherwise known as Berger's disease, which required a kidney transplant.

Fighting for her life

In 2003, Yordy began suffering from some of the symptoms of Berger's disease: pain in her sides, high blood pressure, low-grade fever and swelling in the hands and feet. She had a biopsy and her doctor identified the disease, which had already taken a toll on her kidneys.

"I only had one kidney left, and it was only a little bigger than the size of a quarter," she said.

Kidneys are normally the size of a fist.

Berger's disease prevents kidneys, or in Yordy's case a kidney, from removing waste and excess fluids from the body. It has no cure. Her only hope was a kidney transplant.

But at the time, she weighed too much to be candidate for a transplant. So she went in for gastric bypass surgery. Despite complications with the procedure, she lost more than 100 pounds and was eventually put on the organ donation list.

However, she had already been on a dialysis machine for more than two years and was feeling the tiring effects of dialysis.

"My body was shutting down," Yordy said. "I couldn't even make it from Bridgeport to Decatur to see my doctor. I told them I couldn't do it anymore."

She quit receiving dialysis and just hoped for the best. She'd faced death before.

In 1992, while living in central Florida, Yordy was riding a motorcycle when she struck an 18-wheeler in a head-on collision.

"I remember looking down and seeing the paramedics working on me," Yordy said. "I then heard a voice, which I remember was a male voice, say, 'It's not your time yet.' Next thing I knew I was in ICU. My spleen had shattered inside my body."

Apparently, someone or something continues to watch out for her.

Last year, Yordy and her husband Ray were preparing to go to Las Vegas for their wedding anniversary.

"We didn't know if we would get the chance to celebrate another one," she said. "I was at peace and ready to accept whatever happened. But I got a call from a hospital in Dallas the day before we were going to leave. They said they had two kidneys for me."

On March 3, 2007, Yordy received her transplant. All she knows about her donor is that he was a 42-year-old man that had suffered a massive heart attack. His family chose to donate all his organs. It came just in time and Yordy survived another near-death experience.

"We are all here for a purpose," Yordy said. "I still don't know what mine is. Maybe it is to take care of my daughter or to make my husband's life better."

Both her husband and her 9-year-old daughter Cassi provided her a lot of support during all this, Yordy said.

"My daughter has been in more hospitals than I can remember," she said.

Fighting on the mat

Yordy proved to be a fighter when dealing with her long list of health problems, but now she is taking on a different kind of fight.

"I want to be the first person to earn a black belt after receiving a kidney transplant," Yordy said.

Just a few months after receiving her kidney transplant, Yordy enrolled at the North Texas Karate Academy in Bridgeport. She was having trouble finding a place to take karate classes. Several instructors she'd talked to were worried about the liability issue of working with someone so soon after such a serious surgery.

"She came in here wanting to learn karate," said Stephen Starnes, a fifth-degree black belt in American karate. "I told her she just needed to bring in a note from her doctor."

Yordy started training last August with her daughter Cassi. She has worked her way up to blue belt and has placed first in sparring and self-defense in local tournaments.

"It has really done a lot for her confidence," Starnes said.

"For probably 30 years of my life I had practically no self-esteem at all," Yordy said. "I have gotten a lot of self-esteem and self-respect from this. I can do things I never thought I could before. I can roll punches with the best of them. My attitude has done a 360."

She also helps train others at the academy now. On Tuesdays, she works with the women's self-defense class. This week she was working with a group of teachers from the Bridgeport Middle School.

Starnes was recently contacted by the Bridgeport Police Department to begin providing self-defense lessons for teachers from Bridgeport ISD.

If Yordy stays on track, she plans on earning her black belt by summer 2010.

Yordy and others from the academy will present a demonstration this Saturday at 11 a.m. during Butterfield Stage Days.