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Local Graduate Stays Focused As Father, Mother Undergo Kidney Transplant Surgery

By John Ostapkovich

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - College graduation can be a joyous time for a family- maybe a bit stressful too - but for a young woman about to graduate from La Salle on Sunday there's another big event ahead.

Kiara Smith hopes to go to law school, maybe as soon as this fall, but she's not throwing herself at the LSAT immediately. Her father is facing a kidney transplant on May 28th and her mother is the donor.

Smith says her dad has been battling lupus for years. It attacked his kidneys so he's on dialysis, but they didn't have to look far for a donor match.

"She just got tested, just to see, and the results came back. They were found to be a match," Smith explains.

Graduation looms, as does the transplant, but Smith is keeping things in perspective.

"I really do believe things will be fine. We grew up in the church, so did my parents, so we have faith in God that everything's going to be OK," she says.

Smith says she has kept herself busy with a double-major, an internship and being captain of the women's tennis team.

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