Northwest Iowa mother donates kidney to teenage son, aiding recovery

A northwest Iowa teenager’s recovery now depends on a transplant routine that would strain most families: three lab visits a week, weekly nephrology check-ins and a month in Minneapolis after surgery. For Dierks Hieber, 17, the burden was eased by the one person who matched him, his mother, Ashley Pollema.

Pollema donated one of her kidneys to her son at the University of Minnesota Hospital, and Dierks was released after five days. The family stayed in Minneapolis for another month in a VRBO arranged through Tori’s Angels, a nonprofit that helps families cover transplant-related expenses. For families in Buena Vista County and across northwest Iowa, that kind of support can make the difference between managing care in a major transplant center and trying to shoulder the travel, housing and medical costs alone.

The path to the transplant began in 2022, when doctors found kidney-function problems tied to a virus that had attached to Dierks’ kidneys. By 2025, his Sanford nephrologist in Sioux Falls recommended that he be placed on the transplant list. A February follow-up showed Pollema was a match, opening the door to a live donor transplant, which can improve long-term outcomes and give patients a better chance at recovery.

Pollema grew up in Fonda and graduated from Newell-Fonda. Dierks, a junior at MVAOCOU, finished school early before the family headed to Minneapolis. Both the elementary school and high school gave the family a sendoff as they left for surgery and recovery, a reminder of how tightly a place like Buena Vista County can rally around one of its own when illness reaches far beyond local clinics and into regional specialty care.

The family also partnered with the Children’s Organ Transplant Association, known as COTA, to help raise money for Dierks’ lifelong medical expenses. Dierks comes from a large blended family, and he said he wants to wrestle again, a goal that now depends on careful follow-up and steady healing in the weeks ahead.

The timing added another layer of meaning. The transplant happened during National Donate Life Month and National Pediatric Transplant Week, which in 2026 ran from April 19 to 25. Donate Life America says more than 100,000 people are waiting for lifesaving organ transplants in the U.S., and more than 2,200 children under 18 are on the pediatric waiting list. For one northwest Iowa family, the statistics became personal, and the recovery is only beginning.