With her daughter by her side, Jaime Smythe is taking steps toward a healthier life.

“Exercising is a big part of my life, because it allows the control over my body,” said Smythe.

Exercising has become part of her daily routine, because just a little more than a decade ago, on her 23rd birthday, her life changed forever.

“I woke up spitting up blood with a massive lung hemorrhage and in complete kidney failure. I was intubated and put in a medically induced coma and on life support,” said Smythe.

Smythe was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease called microscopic polyangiitis, which resulted in end stage renal disease.

Despite her efforts to push forward, Smythe says her life could have looked a lot different if a race-based medical test did not lower her chance of receiving a kidney.

“It really put patients like me in a box and makes getting a transplant unattainable,” said Smythe.

The Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate, or EGFR, is one of the tests used to diagnose kidney disease. However, the formula has been discarded by some health professionals due to disparities in care.

“All this time, anyone who was perceived as African American had an overestimation of their filtration rate,” said Dr. Geovani Faddoul, a transplant nephrologist at Albany Medical Center.

At the time the test was created, clinical trials found that Black people on average have higher levels of creatinine in their blood.

Dr. Faddoul says Albany Med has done away with the decades-old test.

“It has an impact when it comes to choosing patients to be evaluated for a kidney transplantation,” said Faddoul.

A new study by the University of Texas found that, after removing the race adjustment, 14% to 28% of Black patients were reclassified into a higher kidney disease stage, which would increase their eligibility for a transplant. But the new data comes a little too late for Smythe.

“Medical emergency after medical emergency could have been avoided,” Smythe said.

One of the hardest parts of her condition is that time is not her own. She goes to the Albany Regional Kidney Center to pick up her medication once a month, and spends 12 hours a night, seven days a week on a dialysis machine.

“You have to operate life at a different pace because you’re dependent on a machine to live. It’s difficult to juggle family, work and a career,” said Smythe.

But that hasn’t stopped her from pushing forward. Smythe works as a paralegal and is studying to specialize in health care law and policy.

“Policy and procedure are really set up to glaze over people that look like me,” said Smythe.

Her studies have shaped the way that she views disparities in health care, especially when it comes to the GFR test.

“You’re either sick or you’re not; you’re either worthy of a lifesaving transplant or you’re not. Life isn’t always black and white,” said Smythe.

While she continues her studies, she’s looking forward to a meeting in a few weeks, where she will find out if she’s one step closer to receiving a kidney.