NEED TO KNOW
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Sisters Claire, 20, and Lilyana Ziemba, 23, underwent kidney stone surgeries just 24 hours apart after both experienced severe symptoms
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Claire spent nearly a year searching for an explanation for blood in her urine, while Lilyana had dealt with debilitating pain on her right side for two years
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The sisters joked on TikTok that the back-to-back emergencies proved they were “connected,” but the experience also brought long-awaited answers about their health
For sisters Claire and Lilyana Ziemba, being bonded for life took on a painfully literal meaning when they landed in the hospital with kidney stones within 24 hours of each other.
Claire, a 20-year-old Duke University student, had just undergone surgery for a 9 mm stone when Lilyana, 23, a student in Duke University School of Medicine’s physician associate program, learned she had a 14 mm stone requiring emergency surgery.
“A sister bond is like no other,” Claire tells PEOPLE exclusively, reflecting on a week that left both women recovering from procedures neither expected to experience side by side. “Lily is the most loyal person I’ve ever met, and we have one of the best friendships, the kind of loyalty that lasts for life.”
The sisters later found humor in the remarkable timing on TikTok, where Claire shared their story with the text, “your sister had to one up you with a 14mm kidney stone 24 hours after you just got your 9mm stone removed.” Her caption summed up the coincidence another way: “24 hour emergency surgeries apart really means we’re connected right.”
But behind the joke was a much longer and more complicated medical story for both sisters. The first symptom Claire noticed was blood in her urine, but without pain, she says she spent months moving between specialists as doctors struggled to determine the cause.
Urgent care initially suggested the bleeding could be related to her period or COVID-19, while urologists and nephrologists told her she was too young for kidney stones, Claire recalls. Nearly a year later, a CT scan in May finally revealed a 9 mm stone in her right kidney and several smaller stones in her left.
Claire scheduled surgery for August, and the procedure initially went smoothly, though she experienced vomiting and uncontrollable shaking around 1 a.m. the following night. A CT scan at the emergency room showed both kidneys were inflamed as she passed fragments, though she eventually recovered enough to be discharged.
Less than 24 hours after Claire was discharged, however, Lilyana began experiencing severe pain of her own. At first, neither sister thought it was unusual because Lilyana had lived with similar pain on her right side for two years and had previously been told her kidney stones were unlikely to be causing it.
Then Lilyana began vomiting and screaming in pain around 2 a.m., prompting a trip to the ER. After three rounds of fentanyl failed to provide relief, she underwent a CT scan and immediately noticed what she describes as a “huge stone” at her ureteropelvic junction, blocking flow to her ureter.
“It was completely surreal to be told I had a 14 mm stone that was blocking flow to my ureter and needed emergency surgery just 24 hours after my sister had gone through her own stone surgery,” Lilyana tells PEOPLE. “We honestly kept joking that we really are bonded because what are the odds.”
Credit: Claire and Lilyana Ziemba
The discovery carried particular weight for Lilyana, who has experienced recurrent kidney stones since she was 16 and has undergone metabolic testing without finding an explanation for why they form. Doctors have not identified a confirmed genetic connection between the sisters’ stones, according to Lilyana, and this was Claire’s first experience with them.
For the past two years, Lilyana had also sought answers for the debilitating but persistent pain on her right side, visiting specialists in OB/GYN, pain management, orthopedics, neurology, urology and nephrology, among others. Because previous scans showed stones embedded in her kidney, doctors did not believe they were responsible for the daily renal-colic-type pain and instead considered other explanations, including issues related to her back.
The uncertainty was familiar territory for both sisters. Claire says being repeatedly told she was “too young” for kidney stones eventually made her question whether she was making too much of the blood she continued seeing in her urine.
“It’s hard knowing that perception is so much of reality,” Claire says. “If nothing is visibly wrong, people don’t always care or believe you, even when you’ve been telling them the truth the whole time.”
For Lilyana, the experience also came with an unexpected resolution: since having the stone removed, she says the chronic pain that disrupted her life for two years is completely gone. After years of searching for an explanation, she describes that relief as “an incredible miracle.”
The timing has given the experience another layer of meaning as Lilyana prepares to begin her physician associate program at Duke. She hopes her own years as a patient will influence how she eventually treats others, particularly those struggling to have unexplained symptoms taken seriously.
Credit: Claire and Lilyana Ziemba
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Both sisters credit their care teams with listening to their concerns and taking their pain seriously. They now hope their experience can encourage greater awareness and research into why young women develop kidney stones and how they might be prevented.
“Having each other there made the experience feel a little less scary,” Lilyana says, “because we were the only two people who could truly understand what the other was experiencing.”
Read the original article on People