OSU jumper Sanye Ford to donate kidney to her mother

mom. Whether it was my kidney or anything, I was going to do it.”

Sam Hutchens Staff Reporter

Sanye Ford wants to attend her OSU graduation. But she would rather be asleep on an operating table.

Ford doesn’t know if she will be able to celebrate her four-year student-athlete experience at Oklahoma State with a walk across the stage to retrieve a diploma. It depends on the doctors. Ford, a jumper on OSU’s track team, is set to donate a kidney to her mom. “It feels so casual,” Ford said. “It’s my

In January 2022, doctors diagnosed Sanye’s mother, Rhonda, with stage-four kidney disease. When doctors discovered Rhonda’s kidneys functioning at just 15%, she faced a life filled with dialysis treatments — a frequent, onerous artificial filtration process that would upend her life.

Rhonda made lifestyle changes. She and her husband Donald started walking their dog, Bentley, a Yorkshire terrier-poodle mix, for two or three miles a day. But she needed something else to avoid dialysis.

Receiving a kidney transplant was the alternative. Rhonda’s husband Donald signed up to donate at first. Sanye insisted on registering, too, despite the lengthy registration process requiring 24 vials of blood to be drawn.

Sanye volunteered her kidney without being asked, just in case Donald’s was ruled out.

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