Jakeina Sutton is in some ways a typical Saint Augustine’s University alumni. She graduated in 2015 with a degree in communication and she is slowly finding her footing in her field.

She earned a Master’s in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2024 and is now participating in a program that will allow her to produce health training manuals and other materials, a career path that would combine her education in communication and health.

But Jakeina’s path has been a lot more difficult than the average Falcon. At the relatively young age of 30, she already has had two heart transplants and a kidney transplant. Now, she needs another kidney transplant.

“Hey y’all! I’m currently looking for a living donor,” Jakeina said in a recent Facebook post. “I pray God will see it through. I’m currently doing dialysis for almost 5 years and I’m blessed to still be here. …I’ve been dealing with health issues all my life and I would like to get over this and move forward and explore the rest of my life. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. Just know I bend but don’t break.”

Jakeina was born with the hereditary condition of cardiomyopathy, a condition that causes the heart muscle to lose the ability to pump blood well. She had her first heart transplant at only four months old. She had a second heart transplant at age 15, and a kidney transplant at the same time.

Now, the medicine that she takes for her heart is affecting her kidney and she needs another kidney transplant.

“Bend but don’t break” is a good description of how she has managed to get through her education and her career, thus far. At both Saint Augustine’s and UNC-Greensboro, Jakeina sometimes had to ask for alternative dates to take exams or turn in assignments. She had to take a year off in graduate school. But she got all her work done.

“I always let my teachers know what’s going on but I made sure to turn everything in,” Jakeina said. “A lot of that comes from my mom’s perseverance. She always told me that when you start something you have to finish it. When I was growing up, she would tell me, ‘Don’t make excuses for yourself’…It has been like that all my life.”

Growing up in Rose Hill, N.C., as the oldest of three children, Jakeina said she could not afford to give in to her health problems. “I didn’t have a choice but to be like a parent [to her two younger brothers]. Who was going to take care of the household?”

Since graduating from Saint Augustine’s, she has worked a few jobs, including an office worker for Spectrum and an airline flight attendant, but has struggled to keep a job because of her health conditions – mostly her need for dialysis. She admits she has gone through periods of depression but said she did not let it linger.

“You have to get out there and live your life as much as you can, and that’s what I’ve been doing,” Jakeina said. “If you just sit in the house and mope what will that do for you?”

Jakeina Sutton is currently in Stage 4 kidney failure. If you are able to donate a kidney or know someone who can, please call UNC Medical Center in Chapel Hill, (984) 974-7568.