Lori Pena has been a fixture in the Edmonds community for decades, known, respected, and yes, loved by legions of her friends and clients.

Many got to know her first by stopping in for a haircut at her downtown business, Salon Pena, on 4th Avenue North, just a half block off Main Street.  Her easy manner, openness and friendliness just kept bringing them back, and today she finds herself cutting hair for the grandchildren of several original clients.

“Over the years you develop a history with your clients,” Pena says. “You form a connection, a history. My clients are my family. They contribute to my well-being; they sustain my life.”

And all during this time, Lori’s smiling, open exterior was covering up a major life challenge: kidney disease.

You might say she came by it naturally. Kidney disease runs in families, and her father fought it all his life, eventually succumbing 15 years ago to kidney failure and related complications.

Lori received her first kidney transplant 30 years ago, and since then has been on a daily regimen of immunosuppressant drugs, “my best meal of the day,” she laughs. With her immune system knocked down, it became a working part of her life to avoid situations where she might be exposed to bacteria or otherwise stress her body’s ability to ward off infections. For her, it became just one of those life limitations one learns to accept and live with.

For 30 years, her donor kidney kept doing its job, filtering metabolic wastes from her blood and allowing her to live a semblance of a normal life.

Then in late 2019, Lori got the bad news that her donor kidney was beginning to fail. That meant embarking on thrice-weekly trips to the clinic for three- to four-hour dialysis treatments — “my spa day,” Lori laughs — and with the help of her physicians and the Northwest Kidney Center starting the search for a new donor kidney.

One thing she hadn’t counted on was her strong network of friends and clients built up over decades of sharing life’s joys and challenges from the styling chair. But in retrospect, it should not have come as a surprise when this “family” gathered round, joined hands, and rallied to her support.

Among these is Wendy Hutchins, a lifetime client, friend and a key presence in Lori’s life.

“Lori has been doing my hair for 35 years – before she even opened her shop in Edmonds,” recalls Wendy. “I needed a haircut and Lori was a newly graduated stylist working a few blocks from me. We hit it off from the start, and she’s been cutting my hair ever since. Lori has always been there and taken a personal interest in me. Our bond is close. We’re like sisters in a way. Her advice is always right on point – like when my streaks of grey began to appear and she gently told me it was time to think about trying some ‘big girl’ coloring.”

And it’s mutual.

“Wendy is a vital part of my life,” says Lori. “We have a unique bond – 100% acceptance. We’ve seen each other through good times and bad. We love each other just the way we are.”

When Wendy learned that Lori’s original transplant was starting to fail and that it was time to begin the long process of finding a new donor kidney, it didn’t take her long to know what she had to do.

“It wasn’t a difficult decision for me,”related Wendy, who is 73.  “I’m always grateful for my long-term good health, but I also believe that I need to be grateful in an active way and here was my opportunity – and challenge – to walk this talk.  I did some online research and spent a little time in my head about it, but the decision itself was a natural.”

For Lori, this decision – and the way it was delivered – came as a shock.

“It was Dec. 13 of 2019,” she relates. “I got a text alert on my phone, opened it up, and read that Wendy was offering me her kidney. My jaw hit the floor. I’m thinking ‘do you have any idea how nuts this is, do you know what you’re doing?’”

As word of Lori’s situation spread among her circle, others responded too.

“Lori has been cutting my hair for at least 15 years,” recalls Edmonds Bookshop owner Mary Kay Sneeringer. “I wanted to help, and I knew that she would be facing a torrent of expenses. I’d never set up a GoFundMe page before; when I first heard about this I figured now was the time to do it.”

At first, Lori turned down the offer, but as the months went by and she was forced to sell her home and her business, the need for this kind of help became clear.

“I’ve been independent and self-sustaining all my life,” she says. “I really had to swallow some humble pie to do this. But through it all, I kept working. I was able to find a new place to live right downtown, and rented a space in the Mosaic Building (at 5th and Dayton) so I could keep running my business. Each week I’d spend three days at the ‘spa’ (dialysis) and three at the shop trying to make enough to sustain rent and life.”

It took another friend,  Edmonds C’est La Vie owner Colleen Boman, to approach Mary Kay Sneeringer and suggest dusting off the idea of setting up the GoFundMe page to help Lori through the process. Late in 2020, the page went online with a $20,000 goal, half of which has already been raised. “It’s a real story of hope,” observes Mary Kay.

But it takes more than money to transplant a kidney. The process of actually moving a kidney from donor to recipient is multi-faceted and complex — so Wendy’s 2019 offer to donate was just the first step on a long road.

Ahead lay months of testing for tissue compatibility, evaluating other potential donors who might be a better match, counseling, and consulting with their care team.

In late 2020, all the hurdles had been crossed and surgery was scheduled for Jan. 6. It was to be a simultaneous surgery, where Wendy’s kidney would be removed and transplanted into Lori at the same time in a carefully choreographed procedure involving multiple surgical teams.

But then the unexpected hit.

On Dec. 6, Lori slipped and fell in the shower, opening a gash on her right shin that took 25 stitches to close. With her healing process slowed by her regiment of immunosuppressive drugs, the doctors determined that her immune system would not be functioning at the level it should be in time for the scheduled surgery.  This led them to postpone rather than risk infection that could knock out the new kidney before it even had the chance to come up to full function.

Her team is monitoring her condition, and will schedule surgery again when they determine all signs are good.

In the meantime, Lori continues her weekly schedule of dialysis and running her shop at Mosaic.

And her friends continue to circle, join hands and support her with healing energy, thoughts and prayers.

In a very special gesture, five of these friends came together to construct a “healing stick,” a group project where each person involved contributes by attaching items to a maple branch — including semi-precious stones, feathers, yarn and other objects that carry positive energy for healing. It is with Lori today as an outward manifestation of the power of friendship and spiritual connection with the incredible circle of friends whose love and power will certainly carry her through this and  future challenges.

But with the funding goal still unreached, there’s plenty of opportunity to pitch in and help. Visit Lori’s GoFundMe page here.

— By Larry Vogel