Vault: A Kidney Transplant Changed How She Fights Illness

Summary

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The Bert Show: "Vault: A Kidney Transplant Changed How She Fights Illness"

Date: June 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on Melissa, a kidney transplant recipient, and how her transplant has profoundly changed her relationship with illness and risk. Through open, vulnerable conversation with Jeffy, Katie, and other cast members, Melissa reflects on the practical, emotional, and existential questions raised by chronic illness—including living with constant health vigilance, fears surrounding legacy and motherhood, and how a recent severe sickness reawakened these challenges. The episode balances humor and gravity, inviting listeners into the authentic, supportive environment of The Bert Show crew.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Injuries and Illness: Getting Real About Health

• Jeffy’s Soccer Injury

  • Jeffy opens up about a recent potential ACL tear while playing soccer.
  • He shares his frustration about physical limitations as he ages and the anxiety of waiting for MRI results.
  • Notable Quote:
    "I'm in my 40s now and I still want to be active. I'm playing soccer and I've had the time of my life... I'm coming to the realization that I can't keep up. Man. Sucks." — Jeffy ([02:17])

• Melissa’s Recent Illness

  • Melissa describes her prolonged bout with laryngitis that evolved into severe ear infections.
  • The show teases her for always being the most health-cautious, but she reveals how serious things get due to her transplant:
  • Notable Quote:
    "One of the things with kidney transplants or any transplants is that we take medicines to suppress our immune system... I have to be very careful about not getting sick." — Melissa ([02:56])

2. Life Post-Kidney Transplant: Vigilance, Uncertainty, and Perspective

• Transplant Realities

  • Melissa shares that a kidney transplant is not a cure but a lifelong treatment.
  • She talks candidly about the possibility of organ rejection, going back on dialysis, and the constant background worry.
  • Notable Quote:
    "A kidney transplant is not a cure. It is a treatment for kidney disease... it could be gone any day. Anything could knock it out." — Melissa ([04:42])

• Emotional Toll

  • Melissa details the unique fear transplant recipients face—that even a small illness can spiral into life-threatening territory.
  • She describes the exhaustion and moments of existential self-check that come during long illnesses.
  • Notable Quote:
    "What if I don't get better? What if this is the illness that's going to take me out? ... I gotta check myself: Am I cool? Have I done everything I want to do? Am I living the way I need to live?" — Melissa ([06:26])

3. Legacy, Regret, and Motherhood

• Regret Around Children

  • Melissa reveals her only major regret is not having children, especially as she grows older with Katie.

  • Both she and Katie discuss that the desire is rooted in legacy, the human impulse to leave something lasting beyond one's public career.

  • Notable Quotes:

    • "If I had more time and I had a chance to do it, I would really make more of an effort to have children." — Melissa ([09:01])
    • "I just feel like the only...because we're in a business that is a popularity contest... but even the most passionate fans...in a hundred years, nobody is going to be talking about us except for the people in our families." — Melissa ([08:12])

  • Jeffy shares a story of a friend fighting cancer whose hardest challenge was realizing she couldn't have children, paralleling the pain Melissa describes.

• Adoption and Possibility

  • Melissa expresses optimism about avenues to motherhood, including adoption.
  • She acknowledges that while the desire might be called "selfish," it reflects a deep, human wish for connection and legacy.

4. Humor and Humanity in Difficult Times

• Despite the heavy themes, the cast maintains their signature humor, joking about Melissa "house humping" to find a comfortable place in her home while sick, or Jeffy saying he’d love to see the co-hosts on painkillers ([02:05]).
• The cast highlights the importance of perspective, with Melissa reiterating she never asks, "Why me?" and instead expresses gratitude for medical advances and her life.

5. Living Together with Chronic Illness

• The conversation touches on how Melissa and Katie are adapting their living situation and habits to protect Melissa's health, hinting they'll be more mindful about illness exposure in the future ([11:06]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Perspective and Survival:
  "I never have this feeling of, why me? Because I should be dead, you know." — Melissa ([09:56])

• On Family and Legacy:
  "A third of my library is my father's books that he passed down to me... I'm collecting these books that I will never read simply because they were my father's. Anybody else's, I would have given them away." — Melissa ([08:53])

• On Living with Uncertainty:
  "...When you're a transplant recipient, you know, you always think, wait, I'm not out of the woods until I'm completely well." — Melissa ([10:47])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:17] Jeffy discusses his soccer injury and feelings of aging
• [02:56] Melissa explains the dangers of illness after a kidney transplant
• [04:42] Realities and risks associated with transplant life
• [06:26] Melissa on existential questions during sickness
• [08:12] The legacy dilemma for public figures
• [09:01] Melissa and Katie on regret and the desire for children
• [09:56] Coping with the "why me" question and gratitude for life
• [11:06] How couples manage chronic illness and health risks

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Takeaway

This episode offers a deeply personal, sometimes raw, and always real conversation about chronic illness, resilience, and the human need for legacy. The Bert Show crew supports each other through humor and heartfelt reflection, making this discussion resonate far beyond the medical details—a testament to living authentically even when life is uncertain.

Transcript

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[Co-host]

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[Geico Gecko]

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[Jeffy]

So Melissa and I are both playing injured this morning. I jacked up my knee playing soccer this weekend and I'm fairly certain I tore my ACL. My doctor's not 100% sure because it's so swollen right now. He couldn't tell. He did some tests on it that indicate that it's not great. So I'm going in for an MRI on Thursday.

[Katie]

And you're in so much pain you had to leave the show and go get some painkillers this morning.

[Jeffy]

I did. I'm pretty loopy right now.

[Katie]

Yeah, but does your knee feel better?

[Jeffy]

Yes.

[Katie]

Does it help, like, instantly?

[Jeffy]

No. It takes about 20 minutes to kick in.

[Katie]

No, but I mean, Once it kicks in, all the pain in your knee goes away or it just subsides a little bit.

[Jeffy]

It subsides. And I don't take a whole one. I take a half one. If I took a whole one, I'd probably feel great. But then you guys could have some real fun. And I don't feel like being that vulnerable with Jeffy. Maybe we should all take them all. You guys take them. I'd love to see you on. We'll do the show. So, yeah, I'm a little on the loopy side today, but, yeah, the pain is. Is going away for sure. So I'll know Thursday what's going on with that. I'm just bummed out because, I mean, I'm in my 40s now and I still want to be active. I'm playing soccer and I've had the time of my life the last couple of weeks playing, and I'm coming to the realization that I can't keep up. Man. Sucks. Like, what are you supposed to do that does suck.

[Melissa]

And you had torn your other knee before, right?

[Jeffy]

Yeah, that was long time ago.

[Melissa]

I just think overcompensated for so long.

[Jeffy]

Maybe that's it. I don't know. We'll find out more Thursday. And then Melissa's back and she's been out for what, a week and a half now?

[Melissa]

Yeah. And I seriously considered being out this week, but I thought, no, I'm going to tough it out. I got laryngitis a couple weeks ago. Felt fine, no big deal. Just lost my voice. One of the things, for those who don't know, I'm a kidney transplant recipient and I got my transplant in 2002. And one of the things with kidney transplants or any transplants is that we take medicines to suppress our immune system. Because the idea is if our body recognized the foreign object, which is the transplanted organ, then it would fight against it and try to reject it. So I have to be very careful about not getting sick. And so they tease me in here all the time because I take so many preventatives measures and not getting sick that there have been times when everybody in the room has gotten sick and I have not gotten sick. But this illness has probably been the worst I've had since my transplant because it, you know, it was. Yeah, it started as laryngitis and then it kind of evolved into ear infection on both ears. I still can't hear out of one of them. I kind of can hear out of the other one. And if it doesn't clear up on its own. Then I'm going to have to have a procedure in order to clear my ears out.

[Jeffy]

Is that why you only have one part of your headphones over your ears today?

[Melissa]

Yeah, the earphone thing, too, is because my. You know, the tubes running from my ears also are a little swollen, so the headphones kind of irritate them. So I'm just generally uncomfortable and have been so for, you know, going on three weeks now.

[Podcast Host]

You got one of them pills?

[Melissa]

Spurts. Brutal. No, I had to get off those pills in order to come to work. I've been on narcotics all last week, and I didn't know where I was. I didn't know. You know, I didn't know what day it was. I missed most of the Haitian coverage. I missed most of the Lane Kiffin coverage because I was so out of it. Yeah. I just was so sick. And so I'm still sick. But one of the things that it brought up to me and Katie is this is the first time she's seen me really sick since we dated.

[Katie]

And y' all been together four years.

[Melissa]

We've been together four years now. And, you know, one of the things for me that is always in the back of my mind is the fact that a kidney transplant is not a cure. It is a treatment for kidney disease. So the kidney. You know, people ask me all the time about the kidney transplant. No, it is not permanent. And yes, it could be gone any day. Anything could knock it out. And so as you just go in life knowing that, because I just feel like, well, without modern medicine, I would have died before I was 30 if

[Jeffy]

something were to happen to that kidney. Now, does that get you higher on the transplant list or because you've had one already, does it lower you, or is it the same?

[Melissa]

It's pretty much the same. I mean, I go in, you know, people. It's first come, first serve. So, you know, certainly the most. The most ill will get. You know, people want to save somebody's life, but. Yeah, no.

[Jeffy]

So you gotta sort of always live with that in the back of your head.

[Melissa]

Yeah, yeah. I'd go back on dialysis and I'd have to search for another organ. So you. You know, it's my responsibility because, you know, you never know what's gonna happen. And so, you know, you accept whatever happens. And. But you do, you know, my responsibility is to do my best to keep from being the contributor to it. You know, I take my medicines as I'm supposed to, and I do the best I can not to get Sick. And so anyway, in this case, I was really sick last week and I just was not feeling better. As, you know, when really sick, you just. The core of you is just so weak. So last week, one of the things that crossed my mind was, what if I don't get better? You know, what if I don't get well because the laryngitis turned into an ear infection, which turned into me being on the couch. I mean, literally, you know, Katie said when I'd fall asleep, I would just be constantly talking. I was so restless and so just uncomfortable and, you know, and I just kept. And it just wasn't getting better. And I'm on, you know, antibiotics and I'm on steroids and, you know, and I've got all these things going on because I can't take other medicines that might be more aggressive. And so. But it really brought home a fact that I've always known and I've never really let go of. But it's just like, what if this is it? What if this is the illness that's going to take me out? And, you know, because it can start as small as a cold or a flu. And then I thought, am I okay with that? Because, you know, you always have to kind of check yourself when you have a chronic or terminal illness. Like, you know what? I gotta check myself. Am I cool? Have I done everything I want to do? Am I living the way I need to live? And for the most part, I have to confess that, yes, I felt like, you know what? I've been incredibly lucky. Been incredibly lucky in my job and my relationship. But I will say the one thing that kept coming up in my mind was children. That's the one regret I had that, you know, because I tease about how much Katie wants children, and of course she wants children, but, you know, it just. The more. Not only the more I'm with her and see, you know, and consider it more and want it more, but I think that it's one of the things that's what keeps coming up when I get this sick.

[Jeffy]

Is it the legacy? I'm sorry? Is it the legacy part of it, or is it the fact that you haven't had the experience of raising children yourself?

[Melissa]

It's the legacy part, I think, more so than anything.

[Katie]

I think that that's a very human quality. Yeah, that's very much a thing. I mean, I think that's sort of programmed in all of us.

[Melissa]

Yeah.

[Katie]

That you want to leave a legacy.

[Melissa]

Ye. I just feel like the only. You know, because we're In a business that is, you know, is a popularity contest, I mean, we thrive, all of us in this room thrive on attention, or we wouldn't be doing what we're doing, you know, and we, and those of us in this room have been very successful at making a name for ourselves in this community. And there are people that know us and there are people that love us just based on what we do, and that's fantastic.

[Katie]

But there's people that hate us based on what we do, too.

[Melissa]

True. But even the most passionate fans of the Burt show in a hundred years, nobody is going to be talking about us except for the people in our families. You know what I mean? And, you know, the fact that, you know, there are things. I mean, it's just the idea, like I was laying in my guest room one day, just changing positions in different rooms, and I was in my guest room one day, house humping. Yeah, right.

[Jeffy]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Which.

[Melissa]

Yeah, that's right. I really felt like doing that. Well, there's a library, and a third of my library is my father's books that he passed down to me. And I just thought, I'm collecting these books that I will never read simply because they were my father's. They're anybody else's. I would have given them away. So anyway, I mean, it's just those little things when it comes to family, and especially your parents and your grandparents and your great grandparents, that it just. For me, I thought, you know, what if I had more time and I had a chance to do it, I would really make more of an effort to have children.

[Jeffy]

I have a friend that is fighting breast cancer right now, and she's been very, very candid in things that have been going on with her. And she's lost her breast and she's lost her ovaries also. And she said to me that the hardest thing of this whole thing hasn't been the fight against the cancer. It's been the fact that she knows now she's never gonna have children. That's been a way bigger fight for her than the actual cancer.

[Melissa]

Now she can have children. I mean, you know, because Katie and I, not only are we thinking about using our own eggs, we're seriously thinking about adoption. There's opportunities out there, you know. Absolutely. To have children. It doesn't have to be a blood, but. Yeah, it just, you know, that's obviously a selfish reason. I mean, I would do my best to be a mother. I think I'd be a better mother now that I'm older than I would have been when I was younger. That's just a personal thing. But yeah, I mean, I have to say that, you know, it just. It. Yeah, it just is. It's not. I never have this feeling of, why me? Because I should be dead, you know, So I never really truly ever think, why me? I don't think I'm unlucky. I don't think that, you know, why do I have to worry about every flu season that comes around and every. You know, Because I do. And I'm constantly worried about when people are sick around me. You know, it's just this one got me and it, you know, and it's still hanging on to me. So they're still in the back of my mind thinking, you know, until I'm completely well, will I feel comfortable? Because I, you know, when you're sick and in battling this, you know, illness on any level, when you're a transplant recipient, you know, you always think, wait, I'm not out of the woods until I'm completely well.

[Jeffy]

Sure.

[Melissa]

So will this change the way that

[Katie]

you guys are at home? Because Katie had gotten really sick after the stress of the holidays and everything else. Like, we. Are y' all still in your room together? And like, maybe next time you'll just separate rooms.

[Melissa]

I think she. I think she, you know, I found that I. Both of us are a lot more conscious about that when we're outside the home. When you're at home, you're more comfortable. I do think that Katie probably. I can't speak for. I'm assuming that in the back of her mind she thinks, you know what? Next time it's going to be different.

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