surgery and medicines out of her own pocket . `` When we looked at the price of getting things done in South Africa . I 'm like , ` We 're never gon na get there . ' It 's $ 45,000 . Where do I even begin ? '' The cost of a kidney transplant in the United States can be $ 25,000 to $ 150,000 , also out of Irungu 's price range . Watch more on Lorna Irungu 's odyssey '' So she began looking elsewhere , sending out e-mails and making phone calls to hospitals in other countries . Doctors at Fortis Hospital in New Delhi , India , were the only ones who responded to her somewhat complicated case . Dr. Vijay Kher , the hospital 's director of nephrology , first talked to Irungu by phone . `` When she called me from Kenya , she was very sick , '' Kher said . `` She had uncontrolled blood pressures , and she was having fever . She had been in ICU for about three weeks . '' But Irungu made it to India . Once her condition was stabilized , doctors performed the
NEW DELHI , India -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Lorna Irungu sits on a hospital bed looking extremely frail . She has lupus and her kidneys continue to fail . Lorna Irungu , 35 , had to travel from Kenya to India to receive her third kidney transplant . `` At some point I just wanted it to be over , '' said Irungu , 35 . `` I was just tired . I was really , really tired of the fighting , of the struggling , of being sick . '' But Irungu did decide to fight , with the help of a very giving family . Three times she has needed a kidney transplant , and three times her family members insisted on donating . First her father donated , then her sister , and then her brother . Irungu says what she could n't find was a doctor who would do the tricky third transplant in her own country of Kenya . When she checked in neighboring countries , the cost was impossibly high . Irungu , who 's single and has no children , has no insurance . So the former television host was paying for the