March 17, 2026 • 48 mins
On this week’s episode of Asking for a Friend, Michele sits down with Cristina Fontana, registered nurse, health coach, living kidney donor, and author of Metamorphosis: The Gift of a Life Lived Twice.
Cristina’s journey began with profound loss. When she was just nine years old, her father was diagnosed with kidney cancer—a moment that quietly planted the seed for a future she never imagined. Years later, after building a career in healthcare and raising a family, Cristina made the extraordinary decision to donate one of her kidneys to a complete stranger.
In this powerful conversation, Cristina shares the deeply personal story behind that decision, what the donation process actually looks like, and how meeting the young man who received her kidney became one of the most meaningful moments of her life.
But this episode goes far beyond organ donation.
Cristina also opens up about navigating grief after losing her father at a young age, how loss shaped her perspective on time and purpose, and why she believes we all have the ability to transform hardship into something meaningful.
Today, she continues that mission through her work as a health coach, author, and advocate for living kidney donation—while also climbing mountains around the world with other kidney donors to raise awareness and inspire others.
This conversation is about resilience, service, and the powerful reminder that even the most difficult chapters of our lives can lead to extraordinary impact.
Where to find Cristina Fontana and her book Metamorphosis:
https://cristinafontanawellness.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/criselba.wellness/
Amazon: https://amzn.to/4sfociU
_________________________________________
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Transcripts are created with AI and may not be perfectly accurate.
Disclaimer: This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions regarding a medical condition.
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Michele Folan (00:00):
The information shared on this podcast is for
educational purposes only andshould not be considered medical
advice.
Please consult a qualifiedhealthcare professional
regarding your individual healthneeds.
You already know I don'tbelieve in shortcuts.
If you're not lifting, walking,eating enough protein, managing
(00:20):
stress, and prioritizing sleep,peptides are not the answer.
Lifestyle is the foundation.
Always.
But here's the truth midlifebiology can be stubborn.
Hormones shift, recovery slows,body composition changes, and
energy dips even when you'redoing the work.
(00:41):
That's where medicallysupported peptide therapy can be
layered in, not as areplacement for discipline, but
as strategic support.
Physician prescribed,clinically guided, compounded
through an FDA-regulatedpharmacy.
This is about optimization, notescape.
If you've built the foundationand feel like you've hit a wall,
(01:02):
this might be the nextintelligence step.
Lifestyle first, strengthmandatory, support biology when
it needs backup.
If this resonates, send me amessage and let's have a real
discussion.
Or check out the link in theshow notes.
Health, wellness, fitness, andeverything in between.
(01:26):
We're removing the taboo fromwhat really matters in midlife.
Today's conversation is abouttransformation.
My guest is Cristina Fontana, aregistered nurse, health coach,
(01:47):
living kidney donor, and now abest-selling author.
Her life has been deeply rootedin healthcare, service, and
prevention, but her personaljourney took her somewhere she
never expected.
After experiencing profoundloss, Christina found herself
asking the same question so manywomen quietly wrestle with.
(02:08):
How do you move forward withoutleaving someone you love
behind?
That question became thefoundation of her book,
Metamorphosis, and for a newchapter in her life centered
around resilience, mindset, andpurposeful living.
Today we're talking aboutgrief, strength, service,
identity, and what it reallylooks like to rebuild.
(02:29):
Cristina Fontana, welcome toAsking for a Friend.
Thank you so much for havingme, Michele.
It's nice to meet you.
Cristina and I are both fasterway coaches, and I think that's
kind of how we probably gotintroduced.
I think you're right, yes.
Yeah.
And as small that as thatcommunity is, it's got big arms.
(02:52):
So it it does, it does reachout to many.
I want to start at thebeginning because I think you've
got a very interesting story.
Tell us a little bit, Cristina,about where you grew up and
what home life was like comingup.
Cristina Fontana (03:09):
So I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela.
Okay.
Um my parents uh both movedthere after World War War II.
My dad was Italian.
Uh, my mom was American, okay.
And my mom was connected withthe mining business and Angel
Falls.
(03:29):
My dad was a civil engineer andhe wanted to have a way to make
some money and send it backhome to his family in Italy.
So they met there, they gotmarried.
My sister and I were bornthere.
We really had no family, nofamily there.
You know, our family was inItaly, in the US.
Um, but we were we're very,very close family.
(03:51):
I have one older sister,Margarita.
We had a cocker spaniel namedJudy, and it was just my mom and
my dad.
So very small.
So when did when did you allleave Venezuela?
So we moved to Indiana in, letme think.
It's been, it'll be 30 yearsthis year.
Okay.
So it's been it's it's been awhile.
(04:13):
You know, when people ask mewhat is home, it's difficult to
say what is home because I feellike I'm a little bit of each
culture, I'm a little bit ofVenezuela, even though I don't
have Venezuelan roots, but I wasborn there.
I have some Italian rootsbecause of my dad and some
American roots because of mymom.
But living in the US for thelast 30 years, I feel like the
(04:35):
U.S.
is home now.
Michele Folan (04:36):
You know, it's so interesting because your
formative years were inVenezuela.
And I have to ask you, how doyou feel about the possible
changes there in that country?
Cristina Fontana (04:48):
You know, um, I have not been back to
Venezuela in 20 years.
So when we heard what washappening, you know, in a way,
obviously all of us are happy.
We're happy that that thecurrent president has left, but
it's a whole regime, right?
If the entire regime is nottaken out, just removing one
(05:10):
person in the big scheme ofthings is not going to make a
big difference.
I have friends, we still havefamily that live there, that
said that after what happened inVenezuela, things have actually
gotten worse.
So it's more difficult to goout on the street.
If they catch you, you know,being supportive of our current
American president, they willtake your phone, they can take
(05:31):
you away, and you might neversee your family again.
So I think it's gonna takemany, many, many years for
Venezuela to rebuild, forAmerican companies to come and,
you know, spend money inVenezuela, but but it's a little
light of hope.
Yeah.
It's a little light of hopethat I haven't had in 20 years.
Because we thought we wouldnever go back.
(05:52):
Yeah.
I went 20 years ago and myVenezuelan passport had expired,
and I went in and out of thecountry with my American
passport, and they didn't wantto let us leave.
So we were almost held hostagein Venezuela and we couldn't
leave.
So they let us leave, but theysaid, Senora, the next time you
come, you make sure you comewith your Venezuelan passport.
The problem is there's no wayto get your Venezuelan passport.
(06:14):
There's no Venezuelanconsulates or embassies in the
US.
The consulate, as you know, ofthe US and Venezuela had shut
down.
It just recently reopened.
So so unless, so if we wanted apassport, we had to stay there.
And if you stay there, thatcould take years.
Yeah.
You might never leave.
So, but we have a littleglimpse of light that maybe we
can go back.
Yeah.
Michele Folan (06:34):
I, you know, and I I appreciate this is a very
interesting perspective becausecertainly we don't get to talk
to anyone that is currentlythere and how the environment
has changed for the better orfor the worse.
But I do agree with you that itis going to take some time just
from what I read.
And uh that, you know, there isthere's light at the end of the
(06:57):
tunnel, hopefully, for for allthe the great people of
Venezuela.
Cristina Fontana (07:01):
Yeah.
Michele Folan (07:02):
And then you speak three languages.
Cristina Fontana (07:04):
I do.
I don't remember learning anyof them.
Because, like I said, growingup in Venezuela and going to
school, I went to an all-girlCatholic school.
The language was Spanish.
So I spoke Spanish at home.
And both of my parents werevery, you know, when we got
home, my dad spoke only Italian.
And if we answered back inSpanish, he would completely
(07:25):
ignore us.
My mom spoke only English, andthe same thing applied.
Like there was no conversationunless I spoke English to my
mom, Italian to my dad.
And I remember them saying, Youknow, you'll be thankful one
day.
You'll be perfectly trilingualand you'll be thankful someday.
And growing up, I didn't quitelove it because you know, my
friends would come to my house.
(07:46):
My mom wouldn't speak Spanishto them.
She would really try to speakEnglish and have them speak
English back.
We learned English at school.
And the same with my dad.
So I grew up with like allthree languages, cultures,
everything intermixed.
That's you might hear a littleaccent, but that's why.
Michele Folan (08:04):
Yeah, just you a little, you you have a little
bit of an accent, but you know,we all have accents from
somewhere, right?
I mean, we it it's it's theMidwest accent.
I I talk to people, you live inIndiana, I know, like you get a
little bit of an Indianaaccent.
I mean, it doesn't matter.
I live very close to Kentucky.
(08:24):
And you know, you go across theriver and accents change.
So it's just fun.
I I think it's a it's a coolstudy.
And I'm just curious howgrowing up in this multicultural
home, how that shaped youridentity growing up.
Cristina Fontana (08:39):
You know, it made me realize that that we are
a mix of cultures, right?
We're not just Venezuelans,right?
Like my friends would lovecoming home, like and never know
what was happening in my home.
Like one time they might comehome and my mom had pumpkins and
it was, you know, Halloween andlet's carve pumpkins.
And they'd be like, who carvespumpkins?
(08:59):
Well, let's all go toChristina's house to carve
pumpkins.
Or, you know, the customs fromVenezuela, you know, eating the
typical ayacas during Christmas.
So, you know, it made merealize too that all of us have
a mix of cultures within us.
And it has made me so hungry tovisit the world, every corner
(09:19):
of the world.
And every time I'm in a newplace, even if I don't speak the
language, I want to learn aboutit.
I wanna, I wanna live it.
I want to try the typicalfoods, you know.
I want to, like my family usedto say, you know, in Rome, you
do as the Romans do, right?
So it was fun.
And it was fun because to methat was normal, right?
But when my friends came home,let's say we sing happy
(09:41):
birthday, and still to this day,I do that with my kids and my
granddaughter.
We always speak sing happybirthday in three different
languages.
That's great.
Because we did it then, andit's like I did it with my kids,
and now my kid, my daughterdoes it with her daughter.
So, you know, it it I think itjust broadens your perspective
on the world, on who we are.
Yeah, it's you.
Michele Folan (10:01):
Well, I'm envious that you you are multilingual.
So anyway, take that for whatit is, but I am envious.
And then you you were drawn tohealthcare.
What drew you to health carethen, particularly oncology and
pediatrics?
Cristina Fontana (10:17):
Well, when I was nine years old, my dad was
diagnosed with kidney cancer,renal cell carcinoma.
As a nine-year-old, you don'treally know what that means,
except, you know, we lived inVenezuela.
My aunt lived in Texas inHouston, and we found out dad
needed to have surgery.
So he needed to have surgery toremove the cancer, to remove
(10:37):
the kidney.
And we spent an entire summer,like three months in Houston.
So I knew from that time that Iwanted to do something in
medicine, that I wanted to helppeople.
Um, I remember talking to mymom about it, and she was like,
you know, you can't help yourdad, you're too young.
At the time, the topic ofkidney transplant had come up,
(10:58):
and he was too sick, he was nota candidate.
And so it that kind of planteda little seed, if you will, and
maybe in my heart, that I wantedto do something in the medical
field.
You know, my I've always lovedkids, and my mom was trying to
push me to be a teacher.
You know, you should probablygo work and do something with
kids.
But that didn't, that didn'texcite me.
(11:20):
Like I wanted to do somethingthat excited me.
So that's when I went intomedical school.
Michele Folan (11:25):
Oh wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then tell me a little bitabout that.
You went to medical school, andthen when did transplant
medicine then start to come intothe picture here?
Cristina Fontana (11:38):
Well, it's a it's uh it's a long process.
So I went to medical school.
Uh, I never graduated.
I had two years left tograduate, and that's when
Venezuela had the big coup thatHugo Chavez took over the
military.
Um, so it became very unstableat that point.
I had been held at gunpointwith my mom multiple times.
(11:59):
That is not in the book, but Ihad been held at gunpoint
multiple times.
We knew if we stayed there, itwas not going to be the kind of
life that I dreamt one day,getting married and having
children, the life I wanted togive to my children.
So my husband and I gotmarried, and I had my sister had
come to visit December, and wehad talked about the political
(12:21):
situation in Venezuela.
She was living in Indiana,doing a PhD, and she had said,
you know, why don't you give meall of your transcripts and we
can see if we can get you intomedical school at Indiana
University?
And at the time, my firstdaughter had already been born.
I had taken a semester off, andgoing back, I realized I was
missing precious milestones ofher development.
(12:44):
So I knew moving to a differentcountry was going to be
difficult.
Going back into medicine wasgoing to be difficult.
So I still wanted to dosomething in the oncology field,
but not quite medicine.
So I applied to the radiationtherapy program here in Indiana
University, got acceptedimmediately.
So I started that summer.
My sister brought the paperworkback in December.
I got the admission letter inthe spring.
(13:05):
Sell everything you have, packyour kids, your suitcases, and
come with nothing.
We had $4,000.
That's all we had.
Oh wow.
Yeah, and just moved to a newcountry.
And I started with radiationtherapy, worked in radiation
therapy for multiple, multipleyears.
And then, long story short, Iwas working for a company called
(13:25):
Cyber Knife of Indianapolis.
And when Cyber Knife shut down,I didn't want to be a
stay-at-home mom.
You know, when you grow uplosing your dad young, there's
always a fear.
What if something happens to myhusband?
Can I just be a stay-at-homemom?
I would never be able tomaintain my kids if I'm a
stay-at-home mom.
And I remember I was in the carand I listened to a radio ad of
Marion University saying, Oh,we have an accelerated BSN
(13:49):
program, Bachelor of Science inNursing, 16 months, but you must
have a previous bachelordegree.
I remember getting home andtelling my husband, I'm going to
go to school to be a nurse.
And he was like, Wait, what?
And I did.
I applied to the program.
Initially, they had told methat I was going to have to
retake all the basic scienceclasses because it had been over
(14:11):
10 years.
And I was like, Oh, I don'tthink I can do that.
So someone had told me at theadmissions program to send a
letter to the dean of the Schoolof Nursing and explain my
situation, which I did.
And they said, Well, we'venever done this before, but I'm
going to let you test out of allthe science classes.
If you test out anatomy,chemistry, you know, physics
(14:35):
with an A or above, you'reautomatically entered into the
nursing program.
Wow.
And I'll be darn if I didn'ttake the challenge and I tested
out of all the basic sciences.
Way to go, Christina.
A or above.
And then I was directlyadmitted into the nursing
program.
Michele Folan (14:53):
That is amazing.
All right.
So let's talk about then.
You've had this great nursingcareer.
I want to get to transplantmedicine because this is really,
I think, where your storyreally starts to shine.
Cristina Fontana (15:09):
Yeah.
So I started my nursing careerof all places in radiation.
Of course, because I had been aradiation therapist, right?
Did radiation.
It was really far.
If you're familiar withIndiana, I worked in Fort Wayne,
which is two hours fromZionsville.
So I would drive two hours towork one way, two hours to work
the other way.
(15:29):
Needless to say, that didn'tlast very long.
It was it, especially in thewinter, it was awful.
Um, switched that and went intopediatrics.
Okay.
And once I was in pediatrics, Imet um one of my little
patients who was a diabetic.
So diabetes and hypertensionare the two leading causes of
kidney failure.
(15:49):
Okay.
This little fifth grader wasvery mischievous.
He would not take care of hisblood sugars.
I mean, which fifth graderdoes, right?
Let's all right.
He was being raised at the timeby his uncle.
And I think he would sneakthings in the bus and in recess,
and he would come to theclinic, the teachers would bring
him to the clinic with superhigh blood sugars.
(16:11):
You know, I'd have to get onthe phone, call his team.
Well, it was scary.
I was working as a schoolnurse, very scary.
Yeah, at the time.
But that brought into my mind alittle seed that had been
planted years ago when my dadwas diagnosed with kidney
cancer.
Because I knew if Logancontinued living the way he was
living, he would end upeventually, possibly with kidney
(16:32):
failure.
And so I was like, you know, Ithink I want to look into
donating my kidney to astranger.
He didn't need a kidney then,so he was still doing okay.
But I did a lot of research.
I looked into, you know, canyou donate to someone who's not
a family member?
Can I help someone in need?
And so little, lo and behold, Iwent through the process, went
(16:55):
through the program, gotadmitted.
And as I was going to mysix-month follow-up, the kidney
transplant team reached out tome and said, you know, we have
an opening for a kidney donorcoordinator.
Oh.
Would you want to work intransplant?
And I was like, Well, I have noexperience in transplant except
what I've been through as apatient myself, as a living
donor.
I don't know.
(17:15):
That's going to be really hardshoes to fill.
And I will never forget themtelling me at the interview, we
can teach you anything there isto teach about transplant
medicine.
What we can't teach you is theheart that you have.
So you've been through theprocess as a donor yourself.
You'll be able to help so manyother more donors because you've
(17:35):
been through it.
We'll teach you the rest.
And that was it.
That was the beginning of thatchapter.
Michele Folan (17:41):
All right.
I had so I we gotta back up alittle bit because first of all,
was your family supportive ofyou being a living kidney donor?
Cristina Fontana (17:51):
Well, when you tell your family that you're
gonna have a surgery that youdon't need to remove an organ
that you don't need to haveremoved to give it to someone
you don't know, obviously theirresponse was like, Are you
crazy?
What are you doing?
Why are we doing this?
So they were not supportive atthe beginning.
(18:11):
But my husband knew me wellenough to know that when I set
my mind up to do something, I doit.
Michele Folan (18:19):
Why does that not surprise me?
Cristina Fontana (18:22):
It was the reason I really wanted to do
this.
And, you know, I explained tohim what had happened with my
dad and where my heart was.
And um, I had talked to one ofmy living donor coordinators at
the time, and she said, I wouldrecommend bringing your husband
to meet the surgeon the day youcome in to meet your transplant
surgeon, which is the one thatwrote the foreword of my book.
(18:45):
And I brought Daniel in and youknow, he grilled the surgeon.
My husband is an oral surgeon,a dentist, and he was like, you
know, you're gonna take herright kidney.
What if you damage your liver?
What if she bleeds to death?
And I remember Dr.
Powellson looking at my husbandin the eye and saying, number
one, I've never lost a patient.
Number two, I have a hugeresponsibility.
(19:06):
I have people that areperfectly healthy coming to an
OR for me to do surgery andremove a kidney.
I make sure they leave that ORas healthy as they came in.
Yeah.
That's all my husband needed toknow.
So from that point on, he wasfully supportive.
He was like, okay, you're ingreat hands.
Dr.
Powellson is wonderful.
(19:27):
You know, he talked to mysister, and you know, eventually
everybody was on board, but notinitially.
Yeah.
I had to give my husband time.
I had to wait, let him digestit.
He did some research.
But I think that thetransformative moment for him
was meeting the surgeon inperson.
Yeah.
Michele Folan (19:47):
All right.
Christina, we're gonna take aquick break and we come back.
I want to talk about yourrecovery physically and
emotionally.
Before we jump back intotoday's conversation, I want to
ask you something.
If you've been listening for awhile, you know this podcast
isn't fluff.
We talk about muscle,metabolism, hormones, brain
(20:08):
health, longevity, the stuffthat actually determines how we
live in our 70s, 80s, andbeyond.
And the show keeps growingbecause you share it.
So if an episode has helped yourethink your health, send it to
a friend, text it to yoursister, share it with your
walking buddy.
That's how this communityexpands.
Smart, curious women bringingother smart, curious women with
(20:32):
them.
Also, I'd love to hear fromyou.
What topics do you want me toexplore?
Who do you want me tochallenge?
What questions are you afraidto ask but secretly want
answered?
You can use the link in theshow notes to join the community
or send me an email with yourideas directly.
This podcast exists becauseyou're asking better questions.
(20:52):
All right, let's get back tothe episode.
Okay, we are back.
What was it like, Cristina,after you had the surgery?
Because I I think it's good forpeople to know if anyone is
ever considering being a livingdonor.
What did recovery look like?
Was it the same as it would beif you were having any other
(21:15):
surgery?
Cristina Fontana (21:15):
You know, I think it's very individualized.
Okay.
I had had three C-sections.
And let me tell you, I thinkkidney donation was a lot easier
than the three C-sections.
Normally it's a laparoscopicsurgery.
Okay.
So they have three little areasin your belly where they insert
the laparoscopic instruments, alittle area in your belly
(21:37):
button, and then there's aboutan area about four or five
inches wide towards the bottomof your belly where the surgeon
actually inserts his hand oncethe key kidney is freed up and
takes it out.
So it is a big surgery, right?
Um, I was in the OR, I thinkfour to five hours.
Um, the expectation is thatdonors remain in the hospital
(21:58):
anywhere from two to four days.
I went home the next day.
Michele Folan (22:01):
Oh, wow.
Cristina Fontana (22:02):
Surgery was a Thursday, and I went to pick up
my son at school Friday.
And when we were in the pickupline, my son is like, wait, mom,
what are you doing in the car?
And I'm like, I'm going home.
So I recovered really, reallyeasily.
The hardest thing for me wasnot to exercise.
You have to really, you haveweightlifting restrictions for
(22:22):
the first six weeks and thenother weightlifting restrictions
for the first 12 weeks.
You can walk, you can't liftweights.
I love doing hot yoga.
I couldn't do any hot yoga, anybackward bends, anything that
would stretch your belly.
That was incredibly difficult.
Um recovery was was easy.
I mean, compared to comparedto, like I said, C-sections, it
(22:44):
was way easier.
So physically, it was easier.
Emotionally, it was a littlebit of a roller coaster.
Okay.
There were good days and baddays.
I didn't know who I wasdonating to, right?
So, you know, I think meetingmy recipient is what made all
the difference in the world.
Michele Folan (23:06):
All right.
One thing.
And I'm going to talk aboutyour recipient.
But the fact that, and this isthis is a little lesson for
anyone that's going to havesurgery.
If you are fit, you take greatcare of yourself, your recovery
from surgery will be so muchbetter.
(23:26):
And I tell people this all thetime.
Yes.
It's it's really working out,eating well, getting good sleep,
all those things matter and addup when you are looking at a
surgery recovery.
So I I applaud you because thatcertainly was the case with
you.
All right.
(23:47):
When did you meet your donor orthat donee?
I met him the day I left thehospital.
Cristina Fontana (23:53):
So the day after surgery.
You did?
I don't yeah.
The day after surgery, the theliving donor advocate and the
surgeon came to my room and hesaid, Do you have any idea who
you donated to?
And I said, No.
And he said, Well, I'm going totell you he's 20 years old and
your kidney is peeing buckets.
(24:14):
And um, if you would like tomeet him, you can go to his
room.
Um, we need to get aninterpreter though, because of
all things, he's Hispanic.
And I bursted out laughing.
And they're like, Well, why areyou laughing?
And I'm like, I don't need aninterpreter.
Spanish is my native language.
That's so awesome.
So I got off with my husbandhelping me, and I walked all the
(24:39):
way down to his room, and therehe was laying in bed, and I
started speaking to him inSpanish, and he looked at me
like, Who is this person?
And I said, I am your donor.
Oh, and he his mom was there,his brother.
I mean, there were tearseverywhere, and he was the age
(24:59):
of one of my kids.
It was like giving life againto someone else, right?
Yeah.
Sweetest young man, incredible.
I mean, like I said,emotionally, that was the moment
when I realized, you know, notknowing who I was giving it to
for many people would be like,no, I would never do that.
I would give it to my husbandor my daughter or my son,
(25:20):
someone I know.
Who are we to choose who yougive it to?
We're we're all connectedsomehow, right?
And it just showed me how easyit is to love, to love someone
that seconds ago was a completestranger.
Yeah.
And seconds later, I had givenhim a new chance at life.
Michele Folan (25:41):
What was his story, Cristina?
Why did he need the kidney?
Cristina Fontana (25:45):
He was born with something called IgA
nephropathy, which is uh adisease that affects the
kidneys.
And when he was in high school,he started not feeling well and
he went to the emergency roomthinking he had a flu or not
feeling good, and they told him,Hey, your kidneys are failing.
We need to put you on dialysisright away.
So, you know, it was somethingthat he was born with that
(26:07):
didn't develop till later inlife.
So, you know, nothing he coulddo about it, right?
Yeah.
Michele Folan (26:13):
Did any of this your experience, not just in the
health world, having the RNbackground?
What made you want to become afaster way coach, just to be a
health coach for other people?
Cristina Fontana (26:27):
So, you know, once you're done donating a
kidney, your life really doesn'tchange in many ways.
But there's a few things thatyou have to monitor for the rest
of your life.
One of the things you had tomonitor is how much protein you
eat.
Um, the other one, we can neverever again take NCIDs, so
ibuprofen, a leave, you know,things like that.
What it's called non-steroidalanti-inflammatory drugs.
(26:50):
Um, and you really have todrink lots and lots and lots of
water.
So I was okay not taking theNCIDS, you know.
Um, at the time I was stillmenstruating and, you know, I
would get horrible pain frommenstruation, and I knew I
couldn't take mitol, I couldn'ttake Advil, I couldn't take any
of those.
But I was like, that's a smallprice to pay.
I'm okay with that.
I'll just tough it out, right?
(27:11):
I already drank a lot of waterbecause, you know, just to pass
the living kidney donor test,they the teams check you for
anything and everything you canpossibly imagine.
So I knew I was healthy enoughto donate.
But you know, in nursing schooland medical school, they don't
teach us a lot about nutrition.
So I was like, well, how do Iknow how much protein I'm
(27:32):
supposed to eat so that my onlykidney doesn't go on overdrive?
Because what happens withprotein that I want people to
understand, protein, if youwould look at it under a
microscope, protein is a largemolecule compared to fats or
carbs.
When we eat too much protein,what happens is your body
utilizes what it needs, but whatit doesn't need, it's filtered
out of your kidneys and youexcrete protein in your urine.
(27:53):
Okay.
When you excrete just a littlebit, it's not a big deal.
But our kidneys have thesetiny, tiny microscopic tubules.
So when you eat a ton ofprotein and your body doesn't
need it, your body's not gonnause it, and you exit that
protein through your kidneys, asit's passing through these
tubules, it has to stretch them.
Stretching them one time,Thanksgiving dinner, you ate a
(28:16):
ton of turkey, not a big deal.
Stretching them every singleday with every single meal,
years and years and years,eventually you're gonna stretch
those tubules and it's gonnastay stretched.
They're never gonna go backdown to their original size.
So they're not gonna act asfilters anymore.
So at that point, everything isgonna go through, and then you
end up in kidney failure.
(28:37):
So for us kidney donors, one ofthe big things they teach you
is to watch the amount ofprotein.
Recommendation for kidneydonors is one gram of protein
per kilo of weight per day.
For healthy adults is one gramof protein per pound of weight
per day.
So kilo and pounds, you know,you have to divide it by 2.2.
(28:57):
So pretty much I eat half ofthe protein uh that you would
eat, for example.
Okay, both have the sameweight.
So you weigh 140 pounds, youcan eat 120, 140 grams of
protein.
I can eat 70.
Okay.
So for me, it was really hardto try to figure that out.
And I remember talking to oneof my nurse friends about it,
and she goes, Oh, there's aprogram called Faster Weight,
(29:20):
where we track macros.
And I'm like, What are macros?
And I'm a nurse.
I'm like, what are macros?
She's like, Oh, it's yourproteins, your carbs, your fats,
and we teach you how much toeat of everything so that it's
good for you and you can decidewhether you want to maintain
weight, lose weight, gainweight.
And so I started looking intoit and was fascinated by it.
Because, like I said, usnurses, doctors, they don't
(29:42):
teach us anything aboutnutrition.
We learn like the minimumnecessary.
So I was fascinated by it.
I did it for several years.
I quit, as many people do.
I'm like, I can do this on myown.
No, I miss the communityterribly.
I came back and then I decided,you know what?
I'm gonna be a coach and I'mgonna help other donors who are
(30:03):
going through this and midlifewomen to know how much to eat.
So that's how I was introducedto it.
Michele Folan (30:08):
Oh, that's that's a circuitous way to get
introduced to it.
But I mean, it just goes toshow you that there's so many
reasons in life to watch what weeat and you know, health
reasons, you want to, it'svanity or whatever it is, but
it's it's helpful to get thatcoaching so that you know what
(30:30):
you're doing.
Cristina Fontana (30:31):
So and I've never left since.
I've been doing Fastaway forseven years.
Oh, that's amazing.
And I follow it, I coach it,you know, and and it keeps me
healthy.
Because you know what?
Six months into my kidneydonation, I had my yearly labs.
So we follow kidney donors fortwo years.
Transplant centers are requiredto follow donors for two years,
(30:53):
then you continue followingwith your primary care physician
the rest of your life.
But from a transplant centerperspective, we are we're only
followed for two years.
And we get two things, well,three things measured your GFR,
the amount of protein in yoururine, how much protein you're
actually spilling in your urine.
And uh, there was one more, oneanother blood test.
It's it's escaping me now.
(31:14):
And my lab values were normal,but someone would have known
something was wrong.
I was either going into kidneyfailure or I was a donor.
My transplant surgeon, Dr.
Powelson, is vegan.
And when I went for mysix-month follow-up, he was
like, you know, your labs lookgood, you know, eventually your
kidney will normalize, you know,because what happens is that
(31:36):
your remaining kidney grows.
Oh, okay.
You don't develop more filters,but the kidney hypertrophies to
take up the job of the otherkidney.
So it's you lose 50%, but youonly lose about 20% kidney
function.
Okay, but that 20% can lookabnormal.
He said, Why don't you follow aplant-based diet and track your
(31:57):
protein?
So I was like, Okay, I cantrack my protein.
I'm already doing faster way.
At the time, Fast Away did nothave plant-based, it was only
regular Fast Away.
So I started looking into thaton my own.
And six uh, my next six-monthfollow-up, so my year and then
my two years, my labs wereperfectly normal.
And ever since, my labs havebeen perfectly normal.
(32:19):
So if you look at my labs, youcan't tell I'm missing a kidney.
I'm feeling wow.
Michele Folan (32:24):
Are you still vegan?
Cristina Fontana (32:25):
Yes, I still eat plant-based.
All right.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Michele Folan (32:31):
I'm not sure, Christina, I could ever do that.
Cristina Fontana (32:35):
I didn't think I could either.
But when your health means, youknow, if you do this, you know,
your labs are going to benormal and you know, then you do
it for health reasons.
Yeah.
Michele Folan (32:47):
Oh, I get that.
I mean, I, you know, if someonetold me it's this or you know,
I would I would say, okay, yeah,sure, sign me up.
But now as things are rightnow, that would be very
difficult for me.
unknown (33:01):
All right.
Cristina Fontana (33:02):
If you ever decide you want to go that way,
let me know.
unknown (33:05):
Okay.
Michele Folan (33:07):
All right.
We've got to talk about yourbook.
Um, Metamorphosis.
Yes.
I would love to know what losscatalyzed the book.
And I I think I know, butplease share.
Cristina Fontana (33:21):
So um, as we shared at the very beginning, my
dad got sick with kidney cancerwhen I was nine.
And he died when I was 14 yearsold.
My mother never remarried.
So my entire life, I grew upwith my mom being mom and dad.
And, you know, when you gothrough a loss that big, you can
(33:42):
either let it define you or youcan rise from it.
And I called it metamorphosisbecause it really felt, you
know, when you're this littlecaterpillar, which I was, you
know, a 14-year-old girl do inlife, and and everything is
swept away from underneath you.
You know, my friends would talkabout, oh, what do you want for
Christmas?
And they wanted all thesethings.
(34:03):
And I remember thinking, I justwant my dad back.
Oh, you know, I felt like I wasgoing into this cocoon, this
dark cocoon tight where Icouldn't even breathe.
And at the time, you think it'sthe end of the world.
And I thought that was the endof the world for many, many
years.
And then all of a sudden,you're able to come out of the
cocoon and you're able tobreathe, and you realize you've
(34:26):
emerged into this beautifulbutterfly that you had no idea
you could become.
And you know, even two peoplegoing through the same grief,
like my sister and I havegrieved and done life very
differently.
So everybody's different.
So it was that deep loss thatpropelled me into writing my
(34:46):
book.
Initially, I was going to writeit only for my kids because
they wanted to know the storyabout losing my dad and
Venezuela and my parents andItaly.
And so I was like, you know,the day I die, I want them to
have something to read, to knowour history, right?
And as I was writing the book,an editor found me and she was
(35:07):
like, I think this needs to bemore than just for your
children.
I think this needs to be foranyone going through grief, for
any woman going through adifficult time, you know.
But I had written part of mybook already, and I'm like, that
means I have to start fromscratch, because the way you
write when you're writingsomething to your a letter to
your children is different thanwhat you would write if I'm
writing something for the entireworld to know, right?
(35:29):
Right.
So I pretty much had to startfrom scratch.
Changing the tone, changing thetone because you're changing
who your reader is.
So keeping some things forthem, and the book is dedicated
to them, but so that everybodyelse there could see that, you
know, when you think life is theend of the world, it's not.
(35:49):
You just have to have an openheart, you have to see what what
happens, what what what theworld has to offer and be open
to the possibilities, right?
And that's what I did.
I I realized that I wanted tolive and do all the things my
dad couldn't do.
You know, that that you know,you never know when your time is
gonna come.
I mean, I didn't certainlydidn't expect my dad to get sick
(36:12):
and when I was nine and diewhen I was 14.
So I lived my entire lifeguarding time as the most
precious thing there is, youknow, um, and living as if I
were dying.
You know, I never I neverwanted to go to bed mad.
I never want, you know, if Icould do something good for
someone else, why wait tilluntil tomorrow?
I don't know if I havetomorrow.
(36:33):
Let's do it today.
So that kind of thing.
So that has what has propelledme and brought me to where I'm
at today.
Yeah.
Michele Folan (36:41):
You know, you you talk about grief holding us
back from really living life.
And I that such a poignantcomment that you made about you
have to be open.
You have to open your heart tohealing.
Because if you if you don't,what you're saying is it it just
the grief will just you'reyou're feeding the grief by not
(37:05):
opening yourself up to healing.
Cristina Fontana (37:08):
Yeah.
Instead of having thatmentality, why me?
Which I did have it for someyears because I think it's a
normal part of the grievingprocess.
Well, why not me?
If God has chosen me, theremust be a purpose.
And you know, when I donated mykidney was the first time I
really realized 360 degrees thatI was meant to go through what
(37:31):
I went through and losing mydad, moving to a different
country.
All the things I'd been throughhad been preparing me to give
so selfishly to someone I didn'tknow.
Like that was that was thepurpose of my life, is to give
that gift.
And you give that gift throughthe podcast that you do to your
(37:51):
listeners, to donating a kidney,to being a nurse, being a
teacher, whatever you do inlife, there is a purpose to what
why we chose to do what we do.
Being a health coach, right?
You don't know how many peopleyou touch.
Yeah, you know, and so I thinkin the book, you know, one of
the things that I want toreiterate is when you're going
(38:12):
through grief or somethingextremely difficult, stop and
pause for a minute and think,how would they want me to live?
How can you honor them movingforward?
They don't want you to stay inbed all day.
They don't want you not to eat,not to work out, not to live,
not to love.
They want because they lovedyou too, because as as big as
(38:34):
the love is, that's how big yourgrief is going to be.
But that's also how much biggeryou're going to emerge and how
much you can do.
Michele Folan (38:42):
You know, I think for some people that tend to
hold on to grief, it's becausethey feel guilty moving forward.
Cristina Fontana (38:49):
Oh, yeah.
There is guilt.
There's guilt every time Ireach one of those summits.
And I think, why am I able todo this?
And so many people are sick inhospital bed.
There's always guilt.
Can I be truly happy again whenthey've died?
But you know what?
You need to honor them.
You need to be happy for thembecause that's how they would
(39:12):
want you to live.
You need to talk about them,you need to remember them during
Christmas.
Say their place at the table.
In Christmas, we we tend to eatthings that my both my parents
used to love that we don't love,but we have them at the table
and we tell our kids, eat a biteof this because of your
grandpa, or eat a bite of thisbecause of your grandma.
She used to love this.
(39:32):
So we've always talked aboutthem.
But that time where there'sthat fine line where you feel
like I shouldn't be happy, oryou feel guilty of being happy,
that's just called living.
Those are stages of grievingand eventually acceptance when
you accept that they're gone,but that's their life, but your
life continues.
You're still here for a reasonand for a purpose.
(39:55):
How would they want to see youliving?
Yeah.
That's when you rephrase it.
Michele Folan (40:00):
We need to talk about your climbing Kilmanjaro
and your the whole story behindthis because it really is
fascinating.
Cristina Fontana (40:10):
Yeah.
So um, a few years afterdonation, I uh found a group of
um donors called kidney donorathletes.
They're online.
You can find them online onFacebook, Instagram.
There's they have a page.
And it's a group of people justlike me, I don't consider
myself an athlete, right?
But that have donated a kidneyand want to show the world that
(40:32):
you can live a long, healthy,vibrant life just with one
kidney.
So sometimes, in order to getthe attention of the media, in
order to get the attention ofthe world, you have to do things
that are a little bit out ofthe ordinary, right?
So KDA, kidney donor athlete,uh, promotes these living donor
treks all over the world.
(40:53):
So I, my first one was MountKilimanjaro in Africa, which is
the tallest freestandingmountain in the world, 19, uh341
feet of elevation.
I've done um Ever Space Camp.
We did Patagonia, the Fitzroy,you know, we did Grand Canyon
Rim to Rim this year.
I'm getting ready to go toItaly to the dolomites and do
(41:14):
the dolomites in September witha KDA.
So it's a way for me to do itand so that people can see who
are these people that are doingthis.
Normal people wouldn't do it,let alone a group of kidney
donors.
But if we can do it and we onlyhave one kidney and we have to
watch our hydration, we have towatch our water, we have to
(41:34):
watch our protein, and anybodycan do it.
Okay.
And we want to show the worldbecause sometimes I saw this
when I worked as a transplantcoordinator.
Many people don't come forwardto donate because they think
it's really going to affecttheir life negatively.
Well, I'm not going to be ableto live the same life I live now
if I give one kidney.
That's not true.
Actually, there are studiesthat show that living kidney
(41:55):
donors tend to outlive the restof the population.
The reason for that is becausesince we know what we've done
and we take such good care ofourselves, we tend to pay more
attention to our labs, to thethings that we eat, to the
exercise that we do, to thehydration, to all those things,
which you probably do too, butI'm really attuned into it
(42:17):
because I only have one kidney,right?
Right.
So these tracks and thekilimanjaro and the ever space
camp and all these tracks that Ido every single year, they're
not really for me.
They're to show the world whata collective group of people can
do.
And if we can do it and we'reokay, yeah, you can do it.
That's that only the kidney.
(42:39):
Yeah.
So yeah.
But like I said, you know,every time I reach one of those
summits and I do one of thosethings, I always think, I'm
always thinking about myrecipient and I'm always
thinking about the list.
There's over a hundred thousandpeople in the US waiting for a
kidney.
And I think usually there's astory behind it, like IU Health
will do a story or the news willinterview us.
(43:01):
And my hope is if one personlistens to this and says, you
know what, I'm gonna call in thetransplant and get tested.
As soon as one person getsremoved from the list, everybody
moves down a step.
So the next person is closerand the next person is closer.
So for me, that is one personis all we need to come forward,
right?
With one of these tracks tomake a difference in the world.
Michele Folan (43:23):
Wow, you are inspiring.
I have to say, you know, we wewe talk about we would always,
always donate to a familymember.
I don't think there'd be aquestion in my mind that if I
had the opportunity to do that.
But for you and all the veryselfless people in your group to
(43:43):
give to a perfect stranger, Ithink is commendable.
And what a lovely, lovely gift,a gift of life to give.
Cristina Fontana (43:53):
Yeah, nothing greater.
Michele Folan (43:55):
Yeah, that's so wonderful.
All right.
This is this is a question.
What is one of yournon-negotiable self-care
practices?
Cristina Fontana (44:05):
I think the very top one, the number one for
me is my hydration.
Having one kidney, I reallydrink, you know, almost a gallon
of water every single day.
And we know that water in andof itself is not enough.
So I always add electrolytes tomy water.
So that is, you know, I wakeup, I have a glass of water on
my night table.
Before my feet hit the ground,I drink a big glass of water and
(44:27):
I continue my day drinkingwater all the time.
So hydration is huge.
And I think another one becauseI learned about it is tracking
my protein, knowing how muchprotein I need to eat.
Because you know what?
Even though I've been doingthis for seven years and I eat
intuitively, when I don't track,I'm always undereating protein.
And I eat a lot less than you.
(44:48):
Think about it.
If if if I need to eat 70 or 75grams and I know I'm under
eating, I'm sometimes some daysnot even getting 50 grams.
And to do these tricks and totrain and to lift weights, the
only way muscle grows and theonly way you stay strong, you
need to have that protein.
Okay.
So protein in every meal.
I have protein at breakfast,even if I have oatmeal, I will
(45:11):
put peanut butter, I will addegg whites, I will always have
protein in every meal.
And it's so funny because mykids even know it.
You know, my youngest grew up,me being a faster way coach, the
older two had already left thehouse.
But Alex can tell you all thetime, Mom, Mom, you're not
having any protein tonight, orwhere's your protein?
Or we go to a restaurant, it'slike, okay, we're having pasta.
(45:32):
Well, where's your protein?
So I'll always ask for extrachicken or shrimp, or you know,
I don't eat meat anymore, but Ido do fish.
So the shrimp.
Yep.
So that's non-negotiable.
Those two I would say are mybiggest ones.
Michele Folan (45:43):
You know, and Cristina's telling a very good
story here because we hammer ourour clients all the time about
making sure you're eating enoughprotein.
So, in perspective, I try toget about 110 grams per day.
And some days it's easier thanothers.
(46:05):
But as women, we don't processprotein as efficiently as we did
when we were younger.
So we need to eat more than wedid when we were younger as
well, except unless you havedonated kidney and then that's a
different story, but sointeresting.
I appreciate you sharing that.
And then, Cristina, where canlisteners find your book and
(46:27):
connect with you?
So my book is on Amazon.
Cristina Fontana (46:30):
Okay.
Um, this is what it looks like.
Okay.
So it has a little bluebutterfly and it says
Metamorphosis, the gift of alife live twice.
You have to put my name down atC-R-I-S-T-I-N-A.
I think there's several othermetamorphosis books out there.
Franz Kafka, there's a bunch ofother books.
So if you unless you put myname, it doesn't come out.
Um, so it's on Amazon.
(46:50):
It's also on there's a there'sa couple other places.
Uh Barnes and Noble.
I realized recently that Barnesand Noble's was carrying my
book.
I was very surprised and veryhappy about that.
And it's also in Italian inAmazon.
So I had it translated inItalian because a lot of my
family is Italian and my familywanted to know the story why I
(47:11):
had donated.
Okay.
And and my dad, it was Italian.
So that part of the familyneeded it in Italian.
So maybe one day I'll do italso in Spanish.
But every time you do one ofthese books and you translate it
to a different language, it'slike writing the book for the
first time again.
So I need a minute before Ihave had to class.
Are you gonna do it in Spanish?
It's like I just I need aminute.
Yeah, it launched last October,so it's it's fairly new.
(47:32):
I have a website, uh,Cristinafontana wellness.com.
I'm on Instagram,criselba.wellness.
Alba is the island from wheremy ancestors came from.
So that's in the book too.
So um it's on Ingram Spark.
If bookstores want to sell thebook, they can go and get it for
a big discount on Ingram Sparkand then sell it at retail
(47:55):
price.
So there's a big discount.
Um, so yeah, that's where it'sat right now.
Michele Folan (47:59):
Well, fantastic! Cristina Fontana, thank you so
much for being a guest today.
This was a wonderfulconversation.
Cristina Fontana (48:07):
Thank you so much for having me.
It's been my pleasure.
Michele Folan (48:10):
Before you go, thank you for being here.
If you want to go a littledeeper, make sure you check out
the show notes for this episode.
That's where I link anything wementioned, resources, partners,
or tools I actually use andtrust.
And if you're not already onthe Asking for a Friend
community newsletter, that'swhere I share practical midlife
tips, favorite finds, recipes,and the things that don't always
(48:34):
make it onto the podcast orInstagram.
You'll find the link to join inthe show notes.
Take care, and I'll see younext week.
The information shared on this podcast is for
educational purposes only andshould not be considered medical
advice.
Please consult a qualifiedhealthcare professional
regarding your individual healthneeds.
You already know I don'tbelieve in shortcuts.
If you're not lifting, walking,eating enough protein, managing
(00:20):
stress, and prioritizing sleep,peptides are not the answer.
Lifestyle is the foundation.
Always.
But here's the truth midlifebiology can be stubborn.
Hormones shift, recovery slows,body composition changes, and
energy dips even when you'redoing the work.
(00:41):
That's where medicallysupported peptide therapy can be
layered in, not as areplacement for discipline, but
as strategic support.
Physician prescribed,clinically guided, compounded
through an FDA-regulatedpharmacy.
This is about optimization, notescape.
If you've built the foundationand feel like you've hit a wall,
(01:02):
this might be the nextintelligence step.
Lifestyle first, strengthmandatory, support biology when
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If this resonates, send me amessage and let's have a real
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Or check out the link in theshow notes.
Health, wellness, fitness, andeverything in between.
(01:26):
We're removing the taboo fromwhat really matters in midlife.
Today's conversation is abouttransformation.
My guest is Cristina Fontana, aregistered nurse, health coach,
(01:47):
living kidney donor, and now abest-selling author.
Her life has been deeply rootedin healthcare, service, and
prevention, but her personaljourney took her somewhere she
never expected.
After experiencing profoundloss, Christina found herself
asking the same question so manywomen quietly wrestle with.
(02:08):
How do you move forward withoutleaving someone you love
behind?
That question became thefoundation of her book,
Metamorphosis, and for a newchapter in her life centered
around resilience, mindset, andpurposeful living.
Today we're talking aboutgrief, strength, service,
identity, and what it reallylooks like to rebuild.
(02:29):
Cristina Fontana, welcome toAsking for a Friend.
Thank you so much for havingme, Michele.
It's nice to meet you.
Cristina and I are both fasterway coaches, and I think that's
kind of how we probably gotintroduced.
I think you're right, yes.
Yeah.
And as small that as thatcommunity is, it's got big arms.
(02:52):
So it it does, it does reachout to many.
I want to start at thebeginning because I think you've
got a very interesting story.
Tell us a little bit, Cristina,about where you grew up and
what home life was like comingup.
Cristina Fontana (03:09):
So I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela.
Okay.
Um my parents uh both movedthere after World War War II.
My dad was Italian.
Uh, my mom was American, okay.
And my mom was connected withthe mining business and Angel
Falls.
(03:29):
My dad was a civil engineer andhe wanted to have a way to make
some money and send it backhome to his family in Italy.
So they met there, they gotmarried.
My sister and I were bornthere.
We really had no family, nofamily there.
You know, our family was inItaly, in the US.
Um, but we were we're very,very close family.
(03:51):
I have one older sister,Margarita.
We had a cocker spaniel namedJudy, and it was just my mom and
my dad.
So very small.
So when did when did you allleave Venezuela?
So we moved to Indiana in, letme think.
It's been, it'll be 30 yearsthis year.
Okay.
So it's been it's it's been awhile.
(04:13):
You know, when people ask mewhat is home, it's difficult to
say what is home because I feellike I'm a little bit of each
culture, I'm a little bit ofVenezuela, even though I don't
have Venezuelan roots, but I wasborn there.
I have some Italian rootsbecause of my dad and some
American roots because of mymom.
But living in the US for thelast 30 years, I feel like the
(04:35):
U.S.
is home now.
Michele Folan (04:36):
You know, it's so interesting because your
formative years were inVenezuela.
And I have to ask you, how doyou feel about the possible
changes there in that country?
Cristina Fontana (04:48):
You know, um, I have not been back to
Venezuela in 20 years.
So when we heard what washappening, you know, in a way,
obviously all of us are happy.
We're happy that that thecurrent president has left, but
it's a whole regime, right?
If the entire regime is nottaken out, just removing one
(05:10):
person in the big scheme ofthings is not going to make a
big difference.
I have friends, we still havefamily that live there, that
said that after what happened inVenezuela, things have actually
gotten worse.
So it's more difficult to goout on the street.
If they catch you, you know,being supportive of our current
American president, they willtake your phone, they can take
(05:31):
you away, and you might neversee your family again.
So I think it's gonna takemany, many, many years for
Venezuela to rebuild, forAmerican companies to come and,
you know, spend money inVenezuela, but but it's a little
light of hope.
Yeah.
It's a little light of hopethat I haven't had in 20 years.
Because we thought we wouldnever go back.
(05:52):
Yeah.
I went 20 years ago and myVenezuelan passport had expired,
and I went in and out of thecountry with my American
passport, and they didn't wantto let us leave.
So we were almost held hostagein Venezuela and we couldn't
leave.
So they let us leave, but theysaid, Senora, the next time you
come, you make sure you comewith your Venezuelan passport.
The problem is there's no wayto get your Venezuelan passport.
(06:14):
There's no Venezuelanconsulates or embassies in the
US.
The consulate, as you know, ofthe US and Venezuela had shut
down.
It just recently reopened.
So so unless, so if we wanted apassport, we had to stay there.
And if you stay there, thatcould take years.
Yeah.
You might never leave.
So, but we have a littleglimpse of light that maybe we
can go back.
Yeah.
Michele Folan (06:34):
I, you know, and I I appreciate this is a very
interesting perspective becausecertainly we don't get to talk
to anyone that is currentlythere and how the environment
has changed for the better orfor the worse.
But I do agree with you that itis going to take some time just
from what I read.
And uh that, you know, there isthere's light at the end of the
(06:57):
tunnel, hopefully, for for allthe the great people of
Venezuela.
Cristina Fontana (07:01):
Yeah.
Michele Folan (07:02):
And then you speak three languages.
Cristina Fontana (07:04):
I do.
I don't remember learning anyof them.
Because, like I said, growingup in Venezuela and going to
school, I went to an all-girlCatholic school.
The language was Spanish.
So I spoke Spanish at home.
And both of my parents werevery, you know, when we got
home, my dad spoke only Italian.
And if we answered back inSpanish, he would completely
(07:25):
ignore us.
My mom spoke only English, andthe same thing applied.
Like there was no conversationunless I spoke English to my
mom, Italian to my dad.
And I remember them saying, Youknow, you'll be thankful one
day.
You'll be perfectly trilingualand you'll be thankful someday.
And growing up, I didn't quitelove it because you know, my
friends would come to my house.
(07:46):
My mom wouldn't speak Spanishto them.
She would really try to speakEnglish and have them speak
English back.
We learned English at school.
And the same with my dad.
So I grew up with like allthree languages, cultures,
everything intermixed.
That's you might hear a littleaccent, but that's why.
Michele Folan (08:04):
Yeah, just you a little, you you have a little
bit of an accent, but you know,we all have accents from
somewhere, right?
I mean, we it it's it's theMidwest accent.
I I talk to people, you live inIndiana, I know, like you get a
little bit of an Indianaaccent.
I mean, it doesn't matter.
I live very close to Kentucky.
(08:24):
And you know, you go across theriver and accents change.
So it's just fun.
I I think it's a it's a coolstudy.
And I'm just curious howgrowing up in this multicultural
home, how that shaped youridentity growing up.
Cristina Fontana (08:39):
You know, it made me realize that that we are
a mix of cultures, right?
We're not just Venezuelans,right?
Like my friends would lovecoming home, like and never know
what was happening in my home.
Like one time they might comehome and my mom had pumpkins and
it was, you know, Halloween andlet's carve pumpkins.
And they'd be like, who carvespumpkins?
(08:59):
Well, let's all go toChristina's house to carve
pumpkins.
Or, you know, the customs fromVenezuela, you know, eating the
typical ayacas during Christmas.
So, you know, it made merealize too that all of us have
a mix of cultures within us.
And it has made me so hungry tovisit the world, every corner
(09:19):
of the world.
And every time I'm in a newplace, even if I don't speak the
language, I want to learn aboutit.
I wanna, I wanna live it.
I want to try the typicalfoods, you know.
I want to, like my family usedto say, you know, in Rome, you
do as the Romans do, right?
So it was fun.
And it was fun because to methat was normal, right?
But when my friends came home,let's say we sing happy
(09:41):
birthday, and still to this day,I do that with my kids and my
granddaughter.
We always speak sing happybirthday in three different
languages.
That's great.
Because we did it then, andit's like I did it with my kids,
and now my kid, my daughterdoes it with her daughter.
So, you know, it it I think itjust broadens your perspective
on the world, on who we are.
Yeah, it's you.
Michele Folan (10:01):
Well, I'm envious that you you are multilingual.
So anyway, take that for whatit is, but I am envious.
And then you you were drawn tohealthcare.
What drew you to health carethen, particularly oncology and
pediatrics?
Cristina Fontana (10:17):
Well, when I was nine years old, my dad was
diagnosed with kidney cancer,renal cell carcinoma.
As a nine-year-old, you don'treally know what that means,
except, you know, we lived inVenezuela.
My aunt lived in Texas inHouston, and we found out dad
needed to have surgery.
So he needed to have surgery toremove the cancer, to remove
(10:37):
the kidney.
And we spent an entire summer,like three months in Houston.
So I knew from that time that Iwanted to do something in
medicine, that I wanted to helppeople.
Um, I remember talking to mymom about it, and she was like,
you know, you can't help yourdad, you're too young.
At the time, the topic ofkidney transplant had come up,
(10:58):
and he was too sick, he was nota candidate.
And so it that kind of planteda little seed, if you will, and
maybe in my heart, that I wantedto do something in the medical
field.
You know, my I've always lovedkids, and my mom was trying to
push me to be a teacher.
You know, you should probablygo work and do something with
kids.
But that didn't, that didn'texcite me.
(11:20):
Like I wanted to do somethingthat excited me.
So that's when I went intomedical school.
Michele Folan (11:25):
Oh wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then tell me a little bitabout that.
You went to medical school, andthen when did transplant
medicine then start to come intothe picture here?
Cristina Fontana (11:38):
Well, it's a it's uh it's a long process.
So I went to medical school.
Uh, I never graduated.
I had two years left tograduate, and that's when
Venezuela had the big coup thatHugo Chavez took over the
military.
Um, so it became very unstableat that point.
I had been held at gunpointwith my mom multiple times.
(11:59):
That is not in the book, but Ihad been held at gunpoint
multiple times.
We knew if we stayed there, itwas not going to be the kind of
life that I dreamt one day,getting married and having
children, the life I wanted togive to my children.
So my husband and I gotmarried, and I had my sister had
come to visit December, and wehad talked about the political
(12:21):
situation in Venezuela.
She was living in Indiana,doing a PhD, and she had said,
you know, why don't you give meall of your transcripts and we
can see if we can get you intomedical school at Indiana
University?
And at the time, my firstdaughter had already been born.
I had taken a semester off, andgoing back, I realized I was
missing precious milestones ofher development.
(12:44):
So I knew moving to a differentcountry was going to be
difficult.
Going back into medicine wasgoing to be difficult.
So I still wanted to dosomething in the oncology field,
but not quite medicine.
So I applied to the radiationtherapy program here in Indiana
University, got acceptedimmediately.
So I started that summer.
My sister brought the paperworkback in December.
I got the admission letter inthe spring.
(13:05):
Sell everything you have, packyour kids, your suitcases, and
come with nothing.
We had $4,000.
That's all we had.
Oh wow.
Yeah, and just moved to a newcountry.
And I started with radiationtherapy, worked in radiation
therapy for multiple, multipleyears.
And then, long story short, Iwas working for a company called
(13:25):
Cyber Knife of Indianapolis.
And when Cyber Knife shut down,I didn't want to be a
stay-at-home mom.
You know, when you grow uplosing your dad young, there's
always a fear.
What if something happens to myhusband?
Can I just be a stay-at-homemom?
I would never be able tomaintain my kids if I'm a
stay-at-home mom.
And I remember I was in the carand I listened to a radio ad of
Marion University saying, Oh,we have an accelerated BSN
(13:49):
program, Bachelor of Science inNursing, 16 months, but you must
have a previous bachelordegree.
I remember getting home andtelling my husband, I'm going to
go to school to be a nurse.
And he was like, Wait, what?
And I did.
I applied to the program.
Initially, they had told methat I was going to have to
retake all the basic scienceclasses because it had been over
(14:11):
10 years.
And I was like, Oh, I don'tthink I can do that.
So someone had told me at theadmissions program to send a
letter to the dean of the Schoolof Nursing and explain my
situation, which I did.
And they said, Well, we'venever done this before, but I'm
going to let you test out of allthe science classes.
If you test out anatomy,chemistry, you know, physics
(14:35):
with an A or above, you'reautomatically entered into the
nursing program.
Wow.
And I'll be darn if I didn'ttake the challenge and I tested
out of all the basic sciences.
Way to go, Christina.
A or above.
And then I was directlyadmitted into the nursing
program.
Michele Folan (14:53):
That is amazing.
All right.
So let's talk about then.
You've had this great nursingcareer.
I want to get to transplantmedicine because this is really,
I think, where your storyreally starts to shine.
Cristina Fontana (15:09):
Yeah.
So I started my nursing careerof all places in radiation.
Of course, because I had been aradiation therapist, right?
Did radiation.
It was really far.
If you're familiar withIndiana, I worked in Fort Wayne,
which is two hours fromZionsville.
So I would drive two hours towork one way, two hours to work
the other way.
(15:29):
Needless to say, that didn'tlast very long.
It was it, especially in thewinter, it was awful.
Um, switched that and went intopediatrics.
Okay.
And once I was in pediatrics, Imet um one of my little
patients who was a diabetic.
So diabetes and hypertensionare the two leading causes of
kidney failure.
(15:49):
Okay.
This little fifth grader wasvery mischievous.
He would not take care of hisblood sugars.
I mean, which fifth graderdoes, right?
Let's all right.
He was being raised at the timeby his uncle.
And I think he would sneakthings in the bus and in recess,
and he would come to theclinic, the teachers would bring
him to the clinic with superhigh blood sugars.
(16:11):
You know, I'd have to get onthe phone, call his team.
Well, it was scary.
I was working as a schoolnurse, very scary.
Yeah, at the time.
But that brought into my mind alittle seed that had been
planted years ago when my dadwas diagnosed with kidney
cancer.
Because I knew if Logancontinued living the way he was
living, he would end upeventually, possibly with kidney
(16:32):
failure.
And so I was like, you know, Ithink I want to look into
donating my kidney to astranger.
He didn't need a kidney then,so he was still doing okay.
But I did a lot of research.
I looked into, you know, canyou donate to someone who's not
a family member?
Can I help someone in need?
And so little, lo and behold, Iwent through the process, went
(16:55):
through the program, gotadmitted.
And as I was going to mysix-month follow-up, the kidney
transplant team reached out tome and said, you know, we have
an opening for a kidney donorcoordinator.
Oh.
Would you want to work intransplant?
And I was like, Well, I have noexperience in transplant except
what I've been through as apatient myself, as a living
donor.
I don't know.
(17:15):
That's going to be really hardshoes to fill.
And I will never forget themtelling me at the interview, we
can teach you anything there isto teach about transplant
medicine.
What we can't teach you is theheart that you have.
So you've been through theprocess as a donor yourself.
You'll be able to help so manyother more donors because you've
(17:35):
been through it.
We'll teach you the rest.
And that was it.
That was the beginning of thatchapter.
Michele Folan (17:41):
All right.
I had so I we gotta back up alittle bit because first of all,
was your family supportive ofyou being a living kidney donor?
Cristina Fontana (17:51):
Well, when you tell your family that you're
gonna have a surgery that youdon't need to remove an organ
that you don't need to haveremoved to give it to someone
you don't know, obviously theirresponse was like, Are you
crazy?
What are you doing?
Why are we doing this?
So they were not supportive atthe beginning.
(18:11):
But my husband knew me wellenough to know that when I set
my mind up to do something, I doit.
Michele Folan (18:19):
Why does that not surprise me?
Cristina Fontana (18:22):
It was the reason I really wanted to do
this.
And, you know, I explained tohim what had happened with my
dad and where my heart was.
And um, I had talked to one ofmy living donor coordinators at
the time, and she said, I wouldrecommend bringing your husband
to meet the surgeon the day youcome in to meet your transplant
surgeon, which is the one thatwrote the foreword of my book.
(18:45):
And I brought Daniel in and youknow, he grilled the surgeon.
My husband is an oral surgeon,a dentist, and he was like, you
know, you're gonna take herright kidney.
What if you damage your liver?
What if she bleeds to death?
And I remember Dr.
Powellson looking at my husbandin the eye and saying, number
one, I've never lost a patient.
Number two, I have a hugeresponsibility.
(19:06):
I have people that areperfectly healthy coming to an
OR for me to do surgery andremove a kidney.
I make sure they leave that ORas healthy as they came in.
Yeah.
That's all my husband needed toknow.
So from that point on, he wasfully supportive.
He was like, okay, you're ingreat hands.
Dr.
Powellson is wonderful.
(19:27):
You know, he talked to mysister, and you know, eventually
everybody was on board, but notinitially.
Yeah.
I had to give my husband time.
I had to wait, let him digestit.
He did some research.
But I think that thetransformative moment for him
was meeting the surgeon inperson.
Yeah.
Michele Folan (19:47):
All right.
Christina, we're gonna take aquick break and we come back.
I want to talk about yourrecovery physically and
emotionally.
Before we jump back intotoday's conversation, I want to
ask you something.
If you've been listening for awhile, you know this podcast
isn't fluff.
We talk about muscle,metabolism, hormones, brain
(20:08):
health, longevity, the stuffthat actually determines how we
live in our 70s, 80s, andbeyond.
And the show keeps growingbecause you share it.
So if an episode has helped yourethink your health, send it to
a friend, text it to yoursister, share it with your
walking buddy.
That's how this communityexpands.
Smart, curious women bringingother smart, curious women with
(20:32):
them.
Also, I'd love to hear fromyou.
What topics do you want me toexplore?
Who do you want me tochallenge?
What questions are you afraidto ask but secretly want
answered?
You can use the link in theshow notes to join the community
or send me an email with yourideas directly.
This podcast exists becauseyou're asking better questions.
(20:52):
All right, let's get back tothe episode.
Okay, we are back.
What was it like, Cristina,after you had the surgery?
Because I I think it's good forpeople to know if anyone is
ever considering being a livingdonor.
What did recovery look like?
Was it the same as it would beif you were having any other
(21:15):
surgery?
Cristina Fontana (21:15):
You know, I think it's very individualized.
Okay.
I had had three C-sections.
And let me tell you, I thinkkidney donation was a lot easier
than the three C-sections.
Normally it's a laparoscopicsurgery.
Okay.
So they have three little areasin your belly where they insert
the laparoscopic instruments, alittle area in your belly
(21:37):
button, and then there's aboutan area about four or five
inches wide towards the bottomof your belly where the surgeon
actually inserts his hand oncethe key kidney is freed up and
takes it out.
So it is a big surgery, right?
Um, I was in the OR, I thinkfour to five hours.
Um, the expectation is thatdonors remain in the hospital
(21:58):
anywhere from two to four days.
I went home the next day.
Michele Folan (22:01):
Oh, wow.
Cristina Fontana (22:02):
Surgery was a Thursday, and I went to pick up
my son at school Friday.
And when we were in the pickupline, my son is like, wait, mom,
what are you doing in the car?
And I'm like, I'm going home.
So I recovered really, reallyeasily.
The hardest thing for me wasnot to exercise.
You have to really, you haveweightlifting restrictions for
(22:22):
the first six weeks and thenother weightlifting restrictions
for the first 12 weeks.
You can walk, you can't liftweights.
I love doing hot yoga.
I couldn't do any hot yoga, anybackward bends, anything that
would stretch your belly.
That was incredibly difficult.
Um recovery was was easy.
I mean, compared to comparedto, like I said, C-sections, it
(22:44):
was way easier.
So physically, it was easier.
Emotionally, it was a littlebit of a roller coaster.
Okay.
There were good days and baddays.
I didn't know who I wasdonating to, right?
So, you know, I think meetingmy recipient is what made all
the difference in the world.
Michele Folan (23:06):
All right.
One thing.
And I'm going to talk aboutyour recipient.
But the fact that, and this isthis is a little lesson for
anyone that's going to havesurgery.
If you are fit, you take greatcare of yourself, your recovery
from surgery will be so muchbetter.
(23:26):
And I tell people this all thetime.
Yes.
It's it's really working out,eating well, getting good sleep,
all those things matter and addup when you are looking at a
surgery recovery.
So I I applaud you because thatcertainly was the case with
you.
All right.
(23:47):
When did you meet your donor orthat donee?
I met him the day I left thehospital.
Cristina Fontana (23:53):
So the day after surgery.
You did?
I don't yeah.
The day after surgery, the theliving donor advocate and the
surgeon came to my room and hesaid, Do you have any idea who
you donated to?
And I said, No.
And he said, Well, I'm going totell you he's 20 years old and
your kidney is peeing buckets.
(24:14):
And um, if you would like tomeet him, you can go to his
room.
Um, we need to get aninterpreter though, because of
all things, he's Hispanic.
And I bursted out laughing.
And they're like, Well, why areyou laughing?
And I'm like, I don't need aninterpreter.
Spanish is my native language.
That's so awesome.
So I got off with my husbandhelping me, and I walked all the
(24:39):
way down to his room, and therehe was laying in bed, and I
started speaking to him inSpanish, and he looked at me
like, Who is this person?
And I said, I am your donor.
Oh, and he his mom was there,his brother.
I mean, there were tearseverywhere, and he was the age
(24:59):
of one of my kids.
It was like giving life againto someone else, right?
Yeah.
Sweetest young man, incredible.
I mean, like I said,emotionally, that was the moment
when I realized, you know, notknowing who I was giving it to
for many people would be like,no, I would never do that.
I would give it to my husbandor my daughter or my son,
(25:20):
someone I know.
Who are we to choose who yougive it to?
We're we're all connectedsomehow, right?
And it just showed me how easyit is to love, to love someone
that seconds ago was a completestranger.
Yeah.
And seconds later, I had givenhim a new chance at life.
Michele Folan (25:41):
What was his story, Cristina?
Why did he need the kidney?
Cristina Fontana (25:45):
He was born with something called IgA
nephropathy, which is uh adisease that affects the
kidneys.
And when he was in high school,he started not feeling well and
he went to the emergency roomthinking he had a flu or not
feeling good, and they told him,Hey, your kidneys are failing.
We need to put you on dialysisright away.
So, you know, it was somethingthat he was born with that
(26:07):
didn't develop till later inlife.
So, you know, nothing he coulddo about it, right?
Yeah.
Michele Folan (26:13):
Did any of this your experience, not just in the
health world, having the RNbackground?
What made you want to become afaster way coach, just to be a
health coach for other people?
Cristina Fontana (26:27):
So, you know, once you're done donating a
kidney, your life really doesn'tchange in many ways.
But there's a few things thatyou have to monitor for the rest
of your life.
One of the things you had tomonitor is how much protein you
eat.
Um, the other one, we can neverever again take NCIDs, so
ibuprofen, a leave, you know,things like that.
What it's called non-steroidalanti-inflammatory drugs.
(26:50):
Um, and you really have todrink lots and lots and lots of
water.
So I was okay not taking theNCIDS, you know.
Um, at the time I was stillmenstruating and, you know, I
would get horrible pain frommenstruation, and I knew I
couldn't take mitol, I couldn'ttake Advil, I couldn't take any
of those.
But I was like, that's a smallprice to pay.
I'm okay with that.
I'll just tough it out, right?
(27:11):
I already drank a lot of waterbecause, you know, just to pass
the living kidney donor test,they the teams check you for
anything and everything you canpossibly imagine.
So I knew I was healthy enoughto donate.
But you know, in nursing schooland medical school, they don't
teach us a lot about nutrition.
So I was like, well, how do Iknow how much protein I'm
(27:32):
supposed to eat so that my onlykidney doesn't go on overdrive?
Because what happens withprotein that I want people to
understand, protein, if youwould look at it under a
microscope, protein is a largemolecule compared to fats or
carbs.
When we eat too much protein,what happens is your body
utilizes what it needs, but whatit doesn't need, it's filtered
out of your kidneys and youexcrete protein in your urine.
(27:53):
Okay.
When you excrete just a littlebit, it's not a big deal.
But our kidneys have thesetiny, tiny microscopic tubules.
So when you eat a ton ofprotein and your body doesn't
need it, your body's not gonnause it, and you exit that
protein through your kidneys, asit's passing through these
tubules, it has to stretch them.
Stretching them one time,Thanksgiving dinner, you ate a
(28:16):
ton of turkey, not a big deal.
Stretching them every singleday with every single meal,
years and years and years,eventually you're gonna stretch
those tubules and it's gonnastay stretched.
They're never gonna go backdown to their original size.
So they're not gonna act asfilters anymore.
So at that point, everything isgonna go through, and then you
end up in kidney failure.
(28:37):
So for us kidney donors, one ofthe big things they teach you
is to watch the amount ofprotein.
Recommendation for kidneydonors is one gram of protein
per kilo of weight per day.
For healthy adults is one gramof protein per pound of weight
per day.
So kilo and pounds, you know,you have to divide it by 2.2.
(28:57):
So pretty much I eat half ofthe protein uh that you would
eat, for example.
Okay, both have the sameweight.
So you weigh 140 pounds, youcan eat 120, 140 grams of
protein.
I can eat 70.
Okay.
So for me, it was really hardto try to figure that out.
And I remember talking to oneof my nurse friends about it,
and she goes, Oh, there's aprogram called Faster Weight,
(29:20):
where we track macros.
And I'm like, What are macros?
And I'm a nurse.
I'm like, what are macros?
She's like, Oh, it's yourproteins, your carbs, your fats,
and we teach you how much toeat of everything so that it's
good for you and you can decidewhether you want to maintain
weight, lose weight, gainweight.
And so I started looking intoit and was fascinated by it.
Because, like I said, usnurses, doctors, they don't
(29:42):
teach us anything aboutnutrition.
We learn like the minimumnecessary.
So I was fascinated by it.
I did it for several years.
I quit, as many people do.
I'm like, I can do this on myown.
No, I miss the communityterribly.
I came back and then I decided,you know what?
I'm gonna be a coach and I'mgonna help other donors who are
(30:03):
going through this and midlifewomen to know how much to eat.
So that's how I was introducedto it.
Michele Folan (30:08):
Oh, that's that's a circuitous way to get
introduced to it.
But I mean, it just goes toshow you that there's so many
reasons in life to watch what weeat and you know, health
reasons, you want to, it'svanity or whatever it is, but
it's it's helpful to get thatcoaching so that you know what
(30:30):
you're doing.
Cristina Fontana (30:31):
So and I've never left since.
I've been doing Fastaway forseven years.
Oh, that's amazing.
And I follow it, I coach it,you know, and and it keeps me
healthy.
Because you know what?
Six months into my kidneydonation, I had my yearly labs.
So we follow kidney donors fortwo years.
Transplant centers are requiredto follow donors for two years,
(30:53):
then you continue followingwith your primary care physician
the rest of your life.
But from a transplant centerperspective, we are we're only
followed for two years.
And we get two things, well,three things measured your GFR,
the amount of protein in yoururine, how much protein you're
actually spilling in your urine.
And uh, there was one more, oneanother blood test.
It's it's escaping me now.
(31:14):
And my lab values were normal,but someone would have known
something was wrong.
I was either going into kidneyfailure or I was a donor.
My transplant surgeon, Dr.
Powelson, is vegan.
And when I went for mysix-month follow-up, he was
like, you know, your labs lookgood, you know, eventually your
kidney will normalize, you know,because what happens is that
(31:36):
your remaining kidney grows.
Oh, okay.
You don't develop more filters,but the kidney hypertrophies to
take up the job of the otherkidney.
So it's you lose 50%, but youonly lose about 20% kidney
function.
Okay, but that 20% can lookabnormal.
He said, Why don't you follow aplant-based diet and track your
(31:57):
protein?
So I was like, Okay, I cantrack my protein.
I'm already doing faster way.
At the time, Fast Away did nothave plant-based, it was only
regular Fast Away.
So I started looking into thaton my own.
And six uh, my next six-monthfollow-up, so my year and then
my two years, my labs wereperfectly normal.
And ever since, my labs havebeen perfectly normal.
(32:19):
So if you look at my labs, youcan't tell I'm missing a kidney.
I'm feeling wow.
Michele Folan (32:24):
Are you still vegan?
Cristina Fontana (32:25):
Yes, I still eat plant-based.
All right.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Michele Folan (32:31):
I'm not sure, Christina, I could ever do that.
Cristina Fontana (32:35):
I didn't think I could either.
But when your health means, youknow, if you do this, you know,
your labs are going to benormal and you know, then you do
it for health reasons.
Yeah.
Michele Folan (32:47):
Oh, I get that.
I mean, I, you know, if someonetold me it's this or you know,
I would I would say, okay, yeah,sure, sign me up.
But now as things are rightnow, that would be very
difficult for me.
unknown (33:01):
All right.
Cristina Fontana (33:02):
If you ever decide you want to go that way,
let me know.
unknown (33:05):
Okay.
Michele Folan (33:07):
All right.
We've got to talk about yourbook.
Um, Metamorphosis.
Yes.
I would love to know what losscatalyzed the book.
And I I think I know, butplease share.
Cristina Fontana (33:21):
So um, as we shared at the very beginning, my
dad got sick with kidney cancerwhen I was nine.
And he died when I was 14 yearsold.
My mother never remarried.
So my entire life, I grew upwith my mom being mom and dad.
And, you know, when you gothrough a loss that big, you can
(33:42):
either let it define you or youcan rise from it.
And I called it metamorphosisbecause it really felt, you
know, when you're this littlecaterpillar, which I was, you
know, a 14-year-old girl do inlife, and and everything is
swept away from underneath you.
You know, my friends would talkabout, oh, what do you want for
Christmas?
And they wanted all thesethings.
(34:03):
And I remember thinking, I justwant my dad back.
Oh, you know, I felt like I wasgoing into this cocoon, this
dark cocoon tight where Icouldn't even breathe.
And at the time, you think it'sthe end of the world.
And I thought that was the endof the world for many, many
years.
And then all of a sudden,you're able to come out of the
cocoon and you're able tobreathe, and you realize you've
(34:26):
emerged into this beautifulbutterfly that you had no idea
you could become.
And you know, even two peoplegoing through the same grief,
like my sister and I havegrieved and done life very
differently.
So everybody's different.
So it was that deep loss thatpropelled me into writing my
(34:46):
book.
Initially, I was going to writeit only for my kids because
they wanted to know the storyabout losing my dad and
Venezuela and my parents andItaly.
And so I was like, you know,the day I die, I want them to
have something to read, to knowour history, right?
And as I was writing the book,an editor found me and she was
(35:07):
like, I think this needs to bemore than just for your
children.
I think this needs to be foranyone going through grief, for
any woman going through adifficult time, you know.
But I had written part of mybook already, and I'm like, that
means I have to start fromscratch, because the way you
write when you're writingsomething to your a letter to
your children is different thanwhat you would write if I'm
writing something for the entireworld to know, right?
(35:29):
Right.
So I pretty much had to startfrom scratch.
Changing the tone, changing thetone because you're changing
who your reader is.
So keeping some things forthem, and the book is dedicated
to them, but so that everybodyelse there could see that, you
know, when you think life is theend of the world, it's not.
(35:49):
You just have to have an openheart, you have to see what what
happens, what what what theworld has to offer and be open
to the possibilities, right?
And that's what I did.
I I realized that I wanted tolive and do all the things my
dad couldn't do.
You know, that that you know,you never know when your time is
gonna come.
I mean, I didn't certainlydidn't expect my dad to get sick
(36:12):
and when I was nine and diewhen I was 14.
So I lived my entire lifeguarding time as the most
precious thing there is, youknow, um, and living as if I
were dying.
You know, I never I neverwanted to go to bed mad.
I never want, you know, if Icould do something good for
someone else, why wait tilluntil tomorrow?
I don't know if I havetomorrow.
(36:33):
Let's do it today.
So that kind of thing.
So that has what has propelledme and brought me to where I'm
at today.
Yeah.
Michele Folan (36:41):
You know, you you talk about grief holding us
back from really living life.
And I that such a poignantcomment that you made about you
have to be open.
You have to open your heart tohealing.
Because if you if you don't,what you're saying is it it just
the grief will just you'reyou're feeding the grief by not
(37:05):
opening yourself up to healing.
Cristina Fontana (37:08):
Yeah.
Instead of having thatmentality, why me?
Which I did have it for someyears because I think it's a
normal part of the grievingprocess.
Well, why not me?
If God has chosen me, theremust be a purpose.
And you know, when I donated mykidney was the first time I
really realized 360 degrees thatI was meant to go through what
(37:31):
I went through and losing mydad, moving to a different
country.
All the things I'd been throughhad been preparing me to give
so selfishly to someone I didn'tknow.
Like that was that was thepurpose of my life, is to give
that gift.
And you give that gift throughthe podcast that you do to your
(37:51):
listeners, to donating a kidney,to being a nurse, being a
teacher, whatever you do inlife, there is a purpose to what
why we chose to do what we do.
Being a health coach, right?
You don't know how many peopleyou touch.
Yeah, you know, and so I thinkin the book, you know, one of
the things that I want toreiterate is when you're going
(38:12):
through grief or somethingextremely difficult, stop and
pause for a minute and think,how would they want me to live?
How can you honor them movingforward?
They don't want you to stay inbed all day.
They don't want you not to eat,not to work out, not to live,
not to love.
They want because they lovedyou too, because as as big as
(38:34):
the love is, that's how big yourgrief is going to be.
But that's also how much biggeryou're going to emerge and how
much you can do.
Michele Folan (38:42):
You know, I think for some people that tend to
hold on to grief, it's becausethey feel guilty moving forward.
Cristina Fontana (38:49):
Oh, yeah.
There is guilt.
There's guilt every time Ireach one of those summits.
And I think, why am I able todo this?
And so many people are sick inhospital bed.
There's always guilt.
Can I be truly happy again whenthey've died?
But you know what?
You need to honor them.
You need to be happy for thembecause that's how they would
(39:12):
want you to live.
You need to talk about them,you need to remember them during
Christmas.
Say their place at the table.
In Christmas, we we tend to eatthings that my both my parents
used to love that we don't love,but we have them at the table
and we tell our kids, eat a biteof this because of your
grandpa, or eat a bite of thisbecause of your grandma.
She used to love this.
(39:32):
So we've always talked aboutthem.
But that time where there'sthat fine line where you feel
like I shouldn't be happy, oryou feel guilty of being happy,
that's just called living.
Those are stages of grievingand eventually acceptance when
you accept that they're gone,but that's their life, but your
life continues.
You're still here for a reasonand for a purpose.
(39:55):
How would they want to see youliving?
Yeah.
That's when you rephrase it.
Michele Folan (40:00):
We need to talk about your climbing Kilmanjaro
and your the whole story behindthis because it really is
fascinating.
Cristina Fontana (40:10):
Yeah.
So um, a few years afterdonation, I uh found a group of
um donors called kidney donorathletes.
They're online.
You can find them online onFacebook, Instagram.
There's they have a page.
And it's a group of people justlike me, I don't consider
myself an athlete, right?
But that have donated a kidneyand want to show the world that
(40:32):
you can live a long, healthy,vibrant life just with one
kidney.
So sometimes, in order to getthe attention of the media, in
order to get the attention ofthe world, you have to do things
that are a little bit out ofthe ordinary, right?
So KDA, kidney donor athlete,uh, promotes these living donor
treks all over the world.
(40:53):
So I, my first one was MountKilimanjaro in Africa, which is
the tallest freestandingmountain in the world, 19, uh341
feet of elevation.
I've done um Ever Space Camp.
We did Patagonia, the Fitzroy,you know, we did Grand Canyon
Rim to Rim this year.
I'm getting ready to go toItaly to the dolomites and do
(41:14):
the dolomites in September witha KDA.
So it's a way for me to do itand so that people can see who
are these people that are doingthis.
Normal people wouldn't do it,let alone a group of kidney
donors.
But if we can do it and we onlyhave one kidney and we have to
watch our hydration, we have towatch our water, we have to
(41:34):
watch our protein, and anybodycan do it.
Okay.
And we want to show the worldbecause sometimes I saw this
when I worked as a transplantcoordinator.
Many people don't come forwardto donate because they think
it's really going to affecttheir life negatively.
Well, I'm not going to be ableto live the same life I live now
if I give one kidney.
That's not true.
Actually, there are studiesthat show that living kidney
(41:55):
donors tend to outlive the restof the population.
The reason for that is becausesince we know what we've done
and we take such good care ofourselves, we tend to pay more
attention to our labs, to thethings that we eat, to the
exercise that we do, to thehydration, to all those things,
which you probably do too, butI'm really attuned into it
(42:17):
because I only have one kidney,right?
Right.
So these tracks and thekilimanjaro and the ever space
camp and all these tracks that Ido every single year, they're
not really for me.
They're to show the world whata collective group of people can
do.
And if we can do it and we'reokay, yeah, you can do it.
That's that only the kidney.
(42:39):
Yeah.
So yeah.
But like I said, you know,every time I reach one of those
summits and I do one of thosethings, I always think, I'm
always thinking about myrecipient and I'm always
thinking about the list.
There's over a hundred thousandpeople in the US waiting for a
kidney.
And I think usually there's astory behind it, like IU Health
will do a story or the news willinterview us.
(43:01):
And my hope is if one personlistens to this and says, you
know what, I'm gonna call in thetransplant and get tested.
As soon as one person getsremoved from the list, everybody
moves down a step.
So the next person is closerand the next person is closer.
So for me, that is one personis all we need to come forward,
right?
With one of these tracks tomake a difference in the world.
Michele Folan (43:23):
Wow, you are inspiring.
I have to say, you know, we wewe talk about we would always,
always donate to a familymember.
I don't think there'd be aquestion in my mind that if I
had the opportunity to do that.
But for you and all the veryselfless people in your group to
(43:43):
give to a perfect stranger, Ithink is commendable.
And what a lovely, lovely gift,a gift of life to give.
Cristina Fontana (43:53):
Yeah, nothing greater.
Michele Folan (43:55):
Yeah, that's so wonderful.
All right.
This is this is a question.
What is one of yournon-negotiable self-care
practices?
Cristina Fontana (44:05):
I think the very top one, the number one for
me is my hydration.
Having one kidney, I reallydrink, you know, almost a gallon
of water every single day.
And we know that water in andof itself is not enough.
So I always add electrolytes tomy water.
So that is, you know, I wakeup, I have a glass of water on
my night table.
Before my feet hit the ground,I drink a big glass of water and
(44:27):
I continue my day drinkingwater all the time.
So hydration is huge.
And I think another one becauseI learned about it is tracking
my protein, knowing how muchprotein I need to eat.
Because you know what?
Even though I've been doingthis for seven years and I eat
intuitively, when I don't track,I'm always undereating protein.
And I eat a lot less than you.
(44:48):
Think about it.
If if if I need to eat 70 or 75grams and I know I'm under
eating, I'm sometimes some daysnot even getting 50 grams.
And to do these tricks and totrain and to lift weights, the
only way muscle grows and theonly way you stay strong, you
need to have that protein.
Okay.
So protein in every meal.
I have protein at breakfast,even if I have oatmeal, I will
(45:11):
put peanut butter, I will addegg whites, I will always have
protein in every meal.
And it's so funny because mykids even know it.
You know, my youngest grew up,me being a faster way coach, the
older two had already left thehouse.
But Alex can tell you all thetime, Mom, Mom, you're not
having any protein tonight, orwhere's your protein?
Or we go to a restaurant, it'slike, okay, we're having pasta.
(45:32):
Well, where's your protein?
So I'll always ask for extrachicken or shrimp, or you know,
I don't eat meat anymore, but Ido do fish.
So the shrimp.
Yep.
So that's non-negotiable.
Those two I would say are mybiggest ones.
Michele Folan (45:43):
You know, and Cristina's telling a very good
story here because we hammer ourour clients all the time about
making sure you're eating enoughprotein.
So, in perspective, I try toget about 110 grams per day.
And some days it's easier thanothers.
(46:05):
But as women, we don't processprotein as efficiently as we did
when we were younger.
So we need to eat more than wedid when we were younger as
well, except unless you havedonated kidney and then that's a
different story, but sointeresting.
I appreciate you sharing that.
And then, Cristina, where canlisteners find your book and
(46:27):
connect with you?
So my book is on Amazon.
Cristina Fontana (46:30):
Okay.
Um, this is what it looks like.
Okay.
So it has a little bluebutterfly and it says
Metamorphosis, the gift of alife live twice.
You have to put my name down atC-R-I-S-T-I-N-A.
I think there's several othermetamorphosis books out there.
Franz Kafka, there's a bunch ofother books.
So if you unless you put myname, it doesn't come out.
Um, so it's on Amazon.
(46:50):
It's also on there's a there'sa couple other places.
Uh Barnes and Noble.
I realized recently that Barnesand Noble's was carrying my
book.
I was very surprised and veryhappy about that.
And it's also in Italian inAmazon.
So I had it translated inItalian because a lot of my
family is Italian and my familywanted to know the story why I
(47:11):
had donated.
Okay.
And and my dad, it was Italian.
So that part of the familyneeded it in Italian.
So maybe one day I'll do italso in Spanish.
But every time you do one ofthese books and you translate it
to a different language, it'slike writing the book for the
first time again.
So I need a minute before Ihave had to class.
Are you gonna do it in Spanish?
It's like I just I need aminute.
Yeah, it launched last October,so it's it's fairly new.
(47:32):
I have a website, uh,Cristinafontana wellness.com.
I'm on Instagram,criselba.wellness.
Alba is the island from wheremy ancestors came from.
So that's in the book too.
So um it's on Ingram Spark.
If bookstores want to sell thebook, they can go and get it for
a big discount on Ingram Sparkand then sell it at retail
(47:55):
price.
So there's a big discount.
Um, so yeah, that's where it'sat right now.
Michele Folan (47:59):
Well, fantastic! Cristina Fontana, thank you so
much for being a guest today.
This was a wonderfulconversation.
Cristina Fontana (48:07):
Thank you so much for having me.
It's been my pleasure.
Michele Folan (48:10):
Before you go, thank you for being here.
If you want to go a littledeeper, make sure you check out
the show notes for this episode.
That's where I link anything wementioned, resources, partners,
or tools I actually use andtrust.
And if you're not already onthe Asking for a Friend
community newsletter, that'swhere I share practical midlife
tips, favorite finds, recipes,and the things that don't always
(48:34):
make it onto the podcast orInstagram.
You'll find the link to join inthe show notes.
Take care, and I'll see younext week.
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