Introduction: D is for... Dawning Destiny

I’ve got stories. I’m living in and moving through a new unfolding story right now. The working title is Dawning Destiny.  There are a plethora of stories of trauma, love, loss, joy, and victory that came before this moment, that all got me here.

And, I’ve been here before, manifold. Each time, the binding starts to burst at the seams, widening to accommodate the growing arsenal of lessons learned, awareness acquired, perspectives augmented, visions renovated, damages detoxed, pain processed, clarity gained, inertia removed, and transformation activated.

This image of my bare face is the newly stretched and expanded binding spine of my new collection of stories and chapters.  You can see it in every wrinkle, every dark spot, every hair in and out of place, every pupil and iris twinkle.

Isul Kim. January 24, 2026. Six months after her kidney transplant surgery on July 24, 2025.

I open with these words on January 24, 2026:

“I am forty-five years old. I am six months old. These are simultaneous truths.”

You see, I was gifted a new life on July 24, 2025, the date of my life-saving kidney transplant.  And now my newly anointed kidney rebirthday. My infinite, eternal gratitude goes out to my earth angel kidney donor and friend, Spencer. I cannot possibly ever thank him or love him enough. Ever.

But perhaps the next best thing I can do, is to make the most of this new life to tell the story, and create and share more beyond this story in a kind of eternal epilogue. Or maybe just wholly new volumes, wholly new lives I have yet to live.  Because a great story will always compel you to turn the page.

***

{ Invocation ]

In the cover of stark daylight,  I am  a spinning  circle, on repeat, and again, on repeat.

In the luminous moonlight, I am an ouroboros, resting in a chrysalis, preparing for new flight.

In the warm glow of the dawning horizon, I am an ever-expanding orbit, breaking away from an eonic gravitational pull, outgrowing the known universe.

I’ve been percolating on sharing my story more fully, and now I’m in full brew mode. 

During the early stages of dealing with advanced kidney disease, fast-tracking to kidney failure, I was seeking any and all resources I could, to figure out how I was going to navigate this. 

The only resources I could find were generally medically based and informational, laser focused on the disease, the physical symptoms directly in front of us, contained to diagnosis and remedy.  There were stories, but were mostly the kidney transplant success stories, all wrapped up in a pretty, produced package, maybe with a little bit about some of the challenges, but still presenting them as just inconveniences. 

I understand the need for these success stories, to encourage hope in kidney failure patients like myself, and especially to encourage potential living kidney donors. But, I’m the kind of person that needs to be given the whole truth, the real story, no matter how scary or intimidating, because without this knowledge, how will I know what I’m up against and how will I prepare myself to fight? 

No story, at least that I could find, spoke of how before even getting to a kidney transplant, the kidney failure and dialysis force you to shift from living to surviving. No one told me how challenging and exhausting it would be, and how sick you’d feel even with the best of treatment.  So many people, both from the medical field and my personal network, would give me only positive, encouraging stories such as: “A lot of our patients report how much better they feel once they are on dialysis.” or “I have a cousin on peritoneal dialysis, and she’s doing great! She can work, travel, everything.” Those were far from my lived experiences with kidney disease and failure.

More importantly, no story mentioned how profoundly many of your relationships with people, old and new in your life, would be impacted–especially your relationship with yourself. 

They all tell you how a kidney transplant is such a gift and a life saver (which, don’t get me wrong – it most certainly is!)

But, if you Google “life after a kidney transplant” you will likely get a list of kidney focused foundations or clinics, again providing information on the medical and logistical aspects of recovery and staying healthy. The few anecdotal or experiential post-transplant “happy ending” stories are about going back to a normal life after a kidney transplant, albeit now with more physical energy and deeper gratitude for life in general.

I also kept seeing the phrases “second chance” and  “new lease on life”. But then when I read those stories featuring or headlining those words, I began to read these buzz phrases at face value. Second chance, meant it was second to a first, not second to none. A new lease is a lease, a temporary thing, not complete ownership of your life. 

Which begged the question, shouldn’t there be more to honoring this gift of life beyond just going back to normal life, being a second chance, being a new lease,  after a literal death-defying, life-saving experience? 

***

“You are going to help so many people by going through what you’re about to go through. You’re going to do great things,” said a voice on the phone.

This voice belonged to Elisa, one of my best and fiercest friends, and this was her immediate response when, in 2022, I called to tell her I was in full kidney failure and about to start dialysis. 

Not “Oh I’m so sorry’. Not “How did it happen?” Not “What went wrong?” Not “That’s so sad to hear, are you okay?” 

Elisa gave me vision and purpose from the very moment she received my news. I knew immediately that she was one of my tribe, my people, and would look to her for support and love throughout this journey. This shifted my shellshock of the diagnosis and allowed me to step back, take a deep breath, widen my perspective, and open myself to the wholeness of what had happened, what was happening and what would and could happen. The whole.

I have reflected back deeply, looked forward intentionally and have been writing presently for these stories I am about to tell to anyone who will read and listen. My health journey is not a finite path from crisis to recovery, disease to remedy, pain to healing. It’s a journey that started long before the kidney failure, and will hopefully continue well beyond my kidney transplant.  An arc that never touches down at the beginning nor the end. It’s an ever-expanding spiral, outgrowing the universe I knew before.

One of the most significant lessons I’ve learned is that the magnitude of what came before you and your journey, is at least as equal to the starting point of the greatness of what lies ahead and who you will become. But, how big and transformational your life becomes can only proportionally scale according to how far and deep you are willing to search, learn and accept yourself. Also known as karmic balance.  

And this magnitude has to include all of it. All of the pain, all of the joy,  all ofthe wins, all of the setbacks, all the dark and light aka the good, bad and the ugly. These are all parts to a whole that each of us encounter and experience in any personal journey, just in different contexts and different ways. My recent journey I’m about to recount was framed by kidney failure. Another’s may be in the experience of fleeing your homeland from certain harm or death to seek refuge in America. And another’s may be in the story of opening a small business, putting everything on the line for a dream of entrepreneurship.

This is why I believe that these stories and takeaways can be for more than just those fighting trauma or kidney failure, as in my case.

This is my way to pay my friend Elisa’s words forward, to those who need to hear it:

 “You are going to help so many people by going through what you’re about to go through. You’re going to do great things.”

I hope I do. These stories are my attempt. This is my dawning destiny.

***

{ Dedication }

 To all those fighting for their lives against trauma or chronic and end-stage kidney disease: First and foremost, find yourself. Then, find your tribe. You will need both. And if you can’t find either – you can find me. I gotchu.

***

With Love and Gratitude 🙏

Isul

💇🏻‍♀️ Hair by Elisa Perez (of Elisa Loretta Hair)

💄 Makeup by Mom + Dad’s good looks, + pure 100% Korean DNA

🫘 Kidney by Spencer Martin

💡 Lighting by the Wonder Valley desert sun

#kidneytransplantsurvivor #kidneytransplantthriver.