Staci’s Fight

06/08/2026

❤️ Day 45 Post-Transplant | One Week Home ❤️

Today marks Day 45 since Staci’s heart transplant and one full week back home.

The last week has been filled with family time, playing with the kids, making sourdough, and getting back to some sense of normal life. After months of hospitals, apartments, doctor appointments, biopsies, and waiting, being home is something we’ve dreamed about for a long time.

This week Staci had a great visit with her P*P. Next week we have another biopsy, and we’ll also be meeting with Dr. Pawale for chest X-rays to make sure everything is healing properly. We’re hoping she might get cleared to start driving again.

One thing we’re keeping a close eye on is that she’s gained about 9 pounds of fluid in the last week, so we’re in communication with the transplant team and following their recommendations. Other than that, things continue moving in the right direction.

For everyone asking what’s next, Staci has big plans.

🍞 She’s making just about every sourdough creation imaginable and has been having a blast doing it.

🎙️ Her podcast is still on track to launch in Late Summer 2026, where she’ll share her journey through congenital heart disease, transplant life, family life, and everything in between.

❤️ She plans to continue advocating for organ donation and helping others facing similar battles.

🤣 Most importantly, she’s enjoying the little things she fought so hard to get back to. Family dinners, kids running through the house, sleeping in her own bed, being home… and annoying Dakota with a never-ending list of house projects and things she wants built for her sourdough business. Apparently surviving a heart transplant unlocked a whole new level of honey-do lists. If it’s not shelves, it’s a bread station. If it’s not a bread station, it’s reorganizing something. Some things really do mean life is getting back to normal.

Thank you all for the prayers, messages, support, donations, meals, and encouragement throughout this entire journey. We truly couldn’t have made it this far without all of you.

One week home.
45 days with a new heart.
A lifetime still ahead of her.

❤️🫀

06/01/2026

Day 38 Post Heart Transplant ❤️

2026 recap so far…

This year has already felt like a whole damn lifetime. In early January, Staci started having stroke-like symptoms. We went to the hospital, and nobody could really figure out what was going on.

On January 13th, she was admitted to Barnes in St. Louis.

On January 30th, she was officially listed as Status 4.

On February 5th, she finally got discharged with an IV and home health coming once a week.

Then on April 6th, everything changed again. She had another stroke-like episode at home. She was life-flighted from the house to Tulsa, then flown by airplane to St. Louis.

On April 15th, the hospital filed for her to be moved to Status 2E.

On April 20th, that was officially accepted.

And then on April 23rd, we got the call.

They had a potential heart for her.

On April 24th, Staci got her heart transplant.

Now here we are…

June 1st. Dakota’s birthday. Day 38 after transplant.

And we are finally headed home.

Not just driving home.
Not just leaving the hospital.
We are bringing her home after months of fear, prayers, waiting, stress, tears, helicopter rides, airplane rides, IVs, home health, hospital rooms, transplant statuses, and enough paperwork to make a normal person lose their damn mind.

This road home means more than I can even explain.

Staci has fought her whole life with the heart she was born with, and now she’s coming home with a new one.

New heart.
New chance.
Same badass Staci.

Let’s go home. ❤️

05/29/2026

Day 35 post heart transplant ❤️

Not a huge update today, but that’s honestly not a bad thing. Staci has another biopsy Monday, so we’re praying everything continues to look good and that her new heart keeps doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. They’re still saying coming home is probably a few months away, which is hard to hear, but we also know this process can’t be rushed. She’s in really good spirits for the most part. She’s just ready to come home. And honestly, who could blame her? Hospital walls and being away from home gets old real quick.

I also wanted to share this picture because it says a lot without needing a whole book written under it.

One side represents the heart she was born with. The TGA heart. The heart that fought every day. The heart that carried pain, surgeries, exhaustion, fear, bad days, silent battles, and things most people never saw.
That old heart was broken in ways most people will never fully understand, but it also fought like hell for her. It kept her here as long as it possibly could. The other side represents her new heart.

A donor heart.
A second chance.
A new chapter.
A new story.

This isn’t just “same heart, healed.” This is new heart, new story. We will never forget what her old heart survived, and we will never stop being thankful for the donor, the donor family, the doctors, the nurses, and every person who has prayed for us, helped us, checked on us, or followed along.

Day 35.

Still here.
Still fighting.
Still healing.
New heart.
New story. ❤️

05/26/2026

Day 31 Post Heart Transplant

OMG. A whole month.

Honestly that doesn’t even feel real typing out. Thirty one days ago we were sitting in complete shock, terrified, exhausted, hopeful, and trying to process that this was actually happening. Now here we are a month later. Staci has officially lost 20 pounds of fluid in the last 10 days 🎉 which is HUGE and one massive step closer to finally coming home. We actually have a date in mind now for coming home too 👀 We’re praying everything keeps going the way it is and that nothing changes, but transplant life has definitely taught us not to count chickens before they hatch. One day at a time. But for the first time in a long time… home actually feels close.

And now for the exciting news…

“Procedure In Progress” podcast is officially coming Late Summer 2026 🎙️

This whole journey has changed our lives forever and we want to tell the REAL side of it all. Not the sugar coated Facebook version. The real fear, the setbacks, the parenting side, the relationship side, the exhaustion, the humor, the survival mode, the gratitude, and everything in between. We’ve lived a lifetime in 31 days. Thank you guys for praying, supporting us, checking in, sending food, messages, gifts, and just loving our family through all of this. We see every bit of it even when we’re slow answering.

One whole month with her new heart.
That’s crazy to even say out loud.

05/21/2026

Day 27 post heart transplant

One thing nobody really talks about enough is the sleep deprivation that comes with being the teammate through all this. For months I’ve basically ran on 2-3 hours of sleep at a time. Adrenaline, stress, hospital chairs, constant thoughts, alarms, doctors walking in, making sure meds are right, making sure she’s okay. You just keep going because the person beside you needs you more than you need sleep. But this week it’s finally catching up to me. I’ve honestly been more tired than I’ve ever been in my life. The weird part is you don’t really allow yourself to feel it in the moment. You just stay moving. You stay focused. You stay strong because somebody has to.

I also want to share something that really stuck with me.

A friend of a friend is currently going through the transplant process too, and they told me their hospital only allows very short visits each day and doesn’t allow their spouse to keep their phone with them most of the time. When I first heard that, I honestly thought it sounded diabolical. I couldn’t imagine it. I felt like I needed to be there 24/7 through all this, and if I wasn’t there, I wanted her to have her phone in case something happened or she needed me. So I asked why the hospital was so strict. The explanation actually made sense. The hospital changed protocols recently to reduce exposure risks, help transplant patients truly rest, and prevent stress or overstimulation while they’re on heavy steroids and recovering. Some patients would try to work nonstop or stay mentally “on” constantly if they had full access to everything. And honestly… I give those families so much credit because I truly don’t know if I could mentally handle doing this that way. It reminded me that every transplant journey looks different. Every hospital is different. Every teammate handles it differently. There’s no perfect way to survive this stuff. You just love your person the best you can and keep showing up every day even when your body and mind are running on fumes.

05/20/2026

Day 25 post heart transplant

For the most part, Staci is doing good. Her biopsy results from Monday came back and heart-wise she’s doing great, which is a huge blessing and something we’re extremely thankful for. Right now though, the biggest issue is fluid retention. She’s holding around 30 pounds of extra water, so the transplant team is monitoring everything very closely and adjusted one of her medications to try and help get it under control. A lot of people who have been through transplant life warned us not to expect a straight downhill slide after surgery. There are going to be bumps, setbacks, adjustments, and moments that test everybody mentally and physically. This is one of those moments.

So right now we just need all the prayer warriors, good thoughts, and positive vibes you’ve got. We know she’s in the best hands possible, and we know this road is a marathon, not a sprint. One day at a time.

05/18/2026

Most people have never heard of Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA) until it affects someone they love.

Staci was born with D-Transposition of the Great Arteries, a congenital heart defect where the two main arteries leaving the heart are switched.

In a typical heart:
• The aorta carries oxygen-rich blood to the body.
• The pulmonary artery carries oxygen-poor blood to the lungs.

With TGA, those pathways are reversed.

That means oxygen-rich blood keeps circulating back to the lungs while oxygen-poor blood circulates back through the body. Instead of one connected system, the body creates two separate loops that cannot properly sustain life without medical intervention.

Years ago, babies born with TGA often underwent a surgery called a Senning or Mustard repair, which is what Staci had. Instead of switching the arteries back into place, surgeons rerouted the blood flow inside the heart using internal pathways called baffles.

That surgery saved lives and gave many children the chance to grow up, have families, work jobs, and live life.

But it was never a “fix.”

Many TGA survivors still face lifelong complications including:
• Arrhythmias
• Heart failure
• Valve issues
• Additional surgeries and procedures
• Transplant evaluation or transplant itself later in life

That’s why congenital heart disease isn’t just a childhood condition. These kids grow up into adults still fighting battles most people never see.

Staci fought that battle her entire life with a heart built differently from the start. And even after all these years, we’re still learning just how many people have never heard of TGA or understand what these families truly live through.

These heart warriors are not broken.
They were rerouted.
And they fight harder than most people will ever realize. 💙

05/17/2026

Day 23 post heart transplant

This definitely isn’t the ideal situation, but we’re making the best of it. We brought a couple of the kids up and her dad came up too, and for the first time in a while it honestly felt a little like home away from home instead of just hospitals, alarms, and waiting rooms.

The girls got to run around, everybody got to sit together, eat together, laugh a little, and just breathe for a minute. Sometimes those little normal moments hit harder than the big ones. You don’t realize how much you miss chaos until toddlers are climbing furniture like tiny caffeinated raccoons again.

Staci is doing great overall. She’s still holding onto a little extra fluid, but compared to where we started, we’ll take that all day long. Every single day feels like another small step back toward real life.

For today, we’re just thankful to all be together for a little while.

05/15/2026

Day 20 post heart transplant

Before y’all read this, I told Staci I wanted her to make a post herself, and this is what she sent me. Also, as we start transitioning into this next phase, we’re probably gonna slow the posts down just a little bit. Don’t panic, though. We’ll still keep everybody updated, still tell y’all what day post transplant it is, and still keep bringing the good content. We’re just finally getting to move from survival mode into actual living again… which honestly still feels weird as hell after everything.

Now here’s Staci’s post:

I didn’t want a page. I didn’t want anyone to know anything. I just wanted to get this done and never talk about it again. This has been my entire life. I’ve always been the girl with the bad heart. I wanted to crawl into a hole, get through this and move on.

I was so wrong.

No, I haven’t been mentally able to sit down and read every post and every comment yet, but I’m pretty sure Dakota turned my Facebook notifications on. Every now and then I look down and see a name and a comment. Some from people I know and some from people I’ve never even met and somehow their words make me smile and breathe a little easier. I’ve actually found myself getting excited when I hear the comment notification sound. I even turned my phone off silent and that never happens. I don’t want this to sound ungrateful. I’ve just always handled things by pushing through, surviving it and then continuing on until the next thing went wrong. But this combination of support from all of you and Dakota being right beside me every step of the way making sure I have what I need without ever overpowering me.. has carried me through some really hard moments. It’s helped me heal and made me smile more than I ever thought I could right now. One day soon I’ll sit down and read every single thing on this page. Honestly, it’ll probably be sooner than I think because the strength and love you’ve all given me is something I could never repay.

I’m so grateful this journey is documented here.

I love you all so much.

Hello everyone, we are Kim McKinzie and Becky Starkey. We are… Kimberly McKinzie needs your support for Help Staci’s Family During Her Heart Transplant Journey

05/14/2026

Day 19 post heart transplant

Today was the day. Staci officially got RELEASED from the hospital 🎉❤️

Still honestly kind of hard to believe we’re even at this point after everything the last few weeks have looked like. Feels like we’ve lived about 10 different lives in 19 days.

Now before everybody starts thinking this means life instantly goes back to normal… absolutely not 🤣 We still have a long road ahead with biopsies, appointments, medications, rehab, and all the transplant stuff that comes with this journey.

So for now we’ll be staying up here in St. Louis at the apartment close to the transplant team while she keeps recovering and going to all her follow-up appointments.

She’s still holding some extra water, but they’re managing it and keeping a close eye on everything. She’ll also have PT and other medical staff checking on her daily while we’re here, so she’s definitely still being monitored very closely.

But this is still a HUGE milestone.

Nineteen days ago we were terrified walking into surgery not knowing what the future looked like. Today we walked out of that hospital together with her new heart doing its job. That’s something I’ll never be able to fully put into words.

Now I’m probably about to get in trouble because apparently “getting released from the hospital” does not count as having the apartment fully stocked with snacks, decorations, and all the random little things she wants 🤣 Human beings survive a literal heart transplant then immediately start nesting. Science should study it.