07/15/2026
𝐀 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞-𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧: 𝐁𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐝 𝐧𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐤𝐢𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐫
For most people, donating an organ is a life-changing gift for someone they know, a relative or close friend. For Deanna Peinsipp, a 49-year-old registered nurse in the Baptist Health Floyd cardiac catheterization lab, it meant giving a kidney to a stranger she had never met.
“There are so many people who die waiting on a kidney,” she said. “I can live with one and he might have died without one.”
Peinsipp knows the anxiety and heartache families feel waiting on life-saving donations for a loved one. In 2006 her brother died waiting on a stem cell transplant. She was evaluated to be a donor but was not a match.
“I was devastated,” she said. “It has always been on my heart. I have been on the donation registry for bone marrow for 15 years and have never been called. I have been thinking of kidney donation for a while but did not meet all of qualifications. In 2022 I went on a fitness plan and lost 70 pounds. The last several years becoming a donor has become a possibility for me.”
That possibility became reality on March 17, when Peinsipp underwent surgery at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and donated one of her kidneys to a teen she had never met. She gave him a second chance at life.
Peinsipp said donating a kidney is just an extension of her desire to help people as a registered nurse. She said nursing is in her blood. Her mother and daughter are also both nurses.
“I love being a nurse and helping people when they are at their lowest and taking care of people,” she said. “Being in the cath lab we have to be on call for people coming in with heart attacks … when they are at their lowest and need someone to take care of them.”
However, she almost did not make it to Cincinnati due to unforeseen circumstances.
She was first contacted in February 2025 about donating a kidney. When another donor had to drop off the list, Peinsipp was contacted again in August. But a trip to Europe delayed the pre-testing and then in December her husband learned he needed triple-bypass surgery. The surgery happened in January.
“That postponed my donation,” she said. “I needed to get my husband through the recovery process. It was devastating. I am sure it was devastating for the family of this young man. They started looking for another candidate, but I said I am not pulling out, I just need to postpone.”
Another donor was not found and Peinsipp was finally able to donate her kidney on March 17.
She was out of work for six weeks and said the recovery process was slow. But she is now back at work and feeling “better than ever.”
“The first three or four weeks were more intense than I thought it would be after surgery. I work out religiously, eat well and I am healthy and thought ‘Oh I will come through this, it will be easy.’ It was not so easy. I was just extremely tired. Now I am almost three months out and I am back to exercising and doing normal stuff.”
Her only limitations include not taking ibuprofen and a few other medications that are hard on kidneys.
She said her family was supportive and that her Baptist Health Floyd co-workers “were absolutely wonderful.”
Peinsipp hopes more people consider organ donation. She wants to donate a piece of her liver next year to help someone else living with a health crisis.
“I can be a double donor,” she said. “I think more people should do it. There is so much need.”
