local girl overcomes vital organ problems

From Matthew Cress in the Jeff/NA News-Tribune, a nice story about an impressive young lady (and someone we've tried to hire as a baby-sitter on occasion-- but so far, without success!)...

Sarah Boesing doesn’t mind talking about the scars. She even jokes about them.

“It sort of looks like a connect-the-dot or something like that,” she said, laughing about the reminders of her 13 surgeries.

Boesing, a senior at Christian Academy of Indiana, knows that she’s lucky to be not only alive, but out on the basketball court or the softball diamond, and she seems pretty content with her lot in life. It’s the losses she can’t stand....

Sarah Boesing’s health has been a matter of public record, eliciting plenty of attention from the community, opponents and, of course, reporters.

Born with a kidney defect, she was given six months to live at the tender age of 11. It was obvious that a transplant would be necessary.

Finally, Susan Botts, who attended the same church as the Boesing family, took the test for computability. A perfect match. Botts’ gift — a new kidney — saved Boesing...

I've posted on those who give vital organs as an act of Christian love previously.


There came a bigger penalty. In November of 2006, five years after the transplant, Boesing was told she had lost part of her immune system function. The drugs, which stopped her body from rejecting the foreign organ by suppressing immune system function, had worked too well.

She could not play sports her entire junior year.

“I grew up playing sports,” she recalled. “I was always running around and doing something. I think it’s played a really big role in keeping me in shape and keeping me healthy. When my senior season came around, I said I wasn’t going to let it beat me this time.”

It didn’t. She played basketball this past fall, working around weekly infusions to boost her immune system, and the effort yielded a public celebration of her tendency to overcome odds.

On April 15 — thanks to a nomination from CAI girls’ hoops coach Tim Coomer — Boesing was awarded the Thomas A. Brady Comeback Scholarship award, granted by The Methodist Sports Medicine Foundation to two college and two high school athletes statewide yearly.

“I was really surprised,” she said. “I didn’t know about the award, or that Coach had nominated me. When I found out, I was confused, but excited.”

The award provided $1,000, as well as a chance to rub elbows with luminaries like keynote speaker Clark Kellogg, former Indiana University great George McGinnis and Indianapolis Colts tight end Dallas Clark....

Boesing will likely attend Anderson University in the fall to pursue a degree in nursing. She’ll, of course, try to get a spot on the softball team.

In the meantime, Boesing will continue to do all the things that have made her special to so many people. She’ll continue to try and resurrect CAI softball.

She’ll continue with her Break the Gray ministry, a project she started two years ago to help reach out to patients with chronic illnesses at Kosair and Riley children’s hospitals. She is coming off a big victory there, as the project has expanded beyond the holidays to help families in their day-to-day activities.

“We really just want to give them a break from the mundane routines of that kind of life,” Boesing said.

It’s a life she knows all about, and she’s got the scars to prove it.