Episode notes
Valen Keefer was ten years old when a diagnosis quietly rewired the rest of her life. What followed was decades of hospital rooms, surgeries, and a body that kept asking more of her than most people are ever asked to give.
Valen was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease (PKD) in childhood, spent eight months hospitalized at eighteen, lost both kidneys, and lived on dialysis until a living donor came forward. She has now carried a transplanted kidney for more than twenty-three years, and when her liver began failing in her mid-thirties, she went through it all again. Today she's a patient advocate, speaker, and podcaster who works with pharmaceutical and biotech companies to represent the patient voice within the PKD and transplant communities.
In this conversation, Valen talks about the version of herself she imagines might have existed without illness, the isolation of looking well while feeling anything but, and what it means to call yourself a "medical athlete" running a lifelong marathon. She also talks about a recent two-week hospital stay, the clarity that arrives in a crisis, and what she'd tell the 19-year-old version of herself who couldn't yet imagine a future worth dreaming about.
To learn more about Valen and her advocacy work, visit thegoodbyepodcast.com.