- April 25, 2024
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A year and a half after her life-saving kidney transplant, an Ormond woman’s passion for dance and faith are reignited.
In 2013, Cindy Lescarbeau barely had enough energy and stamina to get to work. A five-year long battle with kidney failure had left her on the couch, too exhausted to do much of anything.
“I just saved all my energy to get to work and get home,” Lescarbeau said. “It was hard on my family. I started going downhill very slowly, but that last year I lost my vigor for life. I didn’t feel depressed, I just didn’t feel anything.”
“It made me depressed seeing her just dragging away,” said her son, 23-year-old Julian Lescarbeau.
It’s still hard for her to believe that someone who was once a total stranger, was willing to give Lescarbeau her life back. Erika Treadway, who’s only connection to Lescarbeau at the time was attending the same, very large place of worship: Tomoka Christian Church.
“I met her two months before the surgery, Lescarbeau said. “She said she couldn’t bear to look at my kids and know that she could have given them their mom back.”
Once the surgery was complete, the kidney started working immediately, and both women progressed faster than the doctors anticipated. One doctor even nicknamed the organ “a super kidney.”
“I thank God and I thank Erika because she gave me my life back and she gave me more time with my kids and my husband and with the company and all the things I want to do,” Lescarbeau said. “She’s an amazing person and we should be like her.”
In the year and a half after her transplant, Lescarbeau has been very busy making sure she doesn’t take a single day granted. Her faith-based dance company, Dance Divine Ministries, stayed small since it’s opening in 2000 with 26 students and five staff members. After her surgery, she had the energy, confidence and faith to take a risk with her business.
“In the spring I started feeling really good,” Lescarbeau said. “I didn’t remember feeling that good at all before. I went out and I hired a bunch of new staff that was at the top of their fields in what they do. I knew I couldn’t afford to do it, but I really wanted to make a great impact on our community. The bigger the company gets the more impact I can make. So I just knew if I hired the teachers, the company would grow. I was right knowing that I wasn’t going to make any money, but I knew it would get better. I stuck it out and leaped out in faith that it would work.”
Today, her company has 70 students,17 staff members and a seemingly unlimited variety of classes to take. The company recently put on a show at Tomoka Christian Church called “Oceans 2015” to raise money for a family who will be teaching underprivileged people in Southeast Asia for two years. Lescarbeau has also been able to judge national dance competitions and coordinator competitions for Recovery Month. All of this hard work, impossible without the selfless act of stranger, who is now a sister.
“Everyday when I get up I feel so grateful to be alive,” Lescarbeau said. “If it wasn’t for Erika, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this. I’d be on my couch feeling like I wasn’t motivated to do anything. Now looking back at everything and the good that God has brought out of it. I really see my kidney disease as a gift because it brought about so many beautiful things and so many wonderful relationships. I’m grateful that he allowed me to go through it and he did bring me through it.”
“She’s definitely helped out a lot of people,” Julian Lescarbeau said. “If she didn’t have the kidney transplant and was still having the problems with it, she wouldn’t not have touched as many lives. The fact that she didn’t give up even when she was going through a hard time, it’s inspiring because we think life is over when we have a problem. She was faithful and stayed on track.”
