Every day is a gift. Those are the words Julie Marshall, Ph.D., lives by. Her work as the principal of Legion Collegiate Academy, a high school in Rock Hill, inspires and motivates her, but it has been her nearly 15-year health battle that has made her realize just how precious and fragile life really is.
You see, Marshall has undergone not one, not two, but three organ transplants. It is safe to say that Marshall has every reason to be grateful this holiday season.
It all started in 2011. As a lifetime insulin-dependent diabetic, her health was good for the most part, but around that time, her kidney function started to decline, and then her kidneys just stopped working altogether.
“I was headed toward a lifetime of dialysis treatments, so I was put on the transplant list. We reached out to MUSC in Charleston because I was in renal failure, and they told me I would need a pancreas and a kidney transplant,” Marshall explained.
She was told by the medical team she was seeing in Charlotte that they did not do double transplants at her age, which in 2011 was 50 years old.
MUSC, however, was willing to perform a double transplant on Marshall. Her doctor, Prince Mohan Anand, M.D., now director of Transplant Services at MUSC Health Transplant Program Mid-Carolinas in Lancaster, was working in Charleston for MUSC at the time and felt confident that the procedure was appropriate for Marshall.
In 2014, three years after her transplant journey began, she received a new kidney and pancreas in a combined double transplant surgery. “I believe her strength came from her family, her education and her positive attitude,” Anand said. “She is an educator, so she knows how to overcome challenges. Her positivity contributed to the success of the transplants.”
Marshall said that she loved having Anand as her doctor because he took the time to connect with her and treated her with genuine care. She credits him for the fact that after 11 weeks, she was back in the classroom. She shared her journey with her students, and they planned a blood drive and a health fair. “The medical team was so supportive and wanted me to live my life as normal as possible,” she said.
Marshall said she never felt like a sick person, or maybe she just didn’t accept it. She never lost hope. “Everyone at MUSC wanted me to fight. When I was trying to work virtually from the hospital, they would tell me to get moving because I had a meeting to do!”
She explained they were there with her every step of the way. “Aside from my family, they were my biggest cheerleaders. They were also there for my husband, John, as he took care of me.”
Although Marshall dealt with a few infections after the double transplant surgery, she said that her health seemed mostly under control, so she moved on with her life.
Anand had moved to Pennsylvania shortly after her surgery, but she continued to see MUSC doctors in Charleston. A couple of years ago, Marshall discovered that Anand had relocated to Lancaster to work for MUSC Health Lancaster Medical Center.
“We had stayed in touch with him, but when I heard he was in Lancaster, I immediately started seeing him again,” she said.
His move back to South Carolina couldn’t have come at a better time for Marshall. “My kidney was making a dramatic turn, and it was inevitable that I was looking at another transplant. The MUSC team in Lancaster did everything they could to keep me off of dialysis, and in June I got a call to come to the hospital because they had another kidney for me!”
In 2025, Marshall underwent a second kidney transplant surgery under Anand in Lancaster.
She said her newest kidney began working very well after some downtime. “With her new transplant, her health should improve significantly over the next few months. She already feels better,” Anand said.
Marshall wants to serve as a volunteer patient educator, guest speaker and advocate for others with diabetes and kidney disease. “I want to share my story to give others hope, to teach people about preventative care and how important each body system is to overall health.”
For now, she has embraced her role as principal of Legion Collegiate Academy, which she said is her main purpose. After more than 37 years in education as both a teacher and an administrator, she said this work still feels like what she was born to do. “This is not a job; this is my calling and purpose,” she said. “My children and staff count on and depend on me, and I on them. They are my why. We are a family. We push forward together.”
She now talks to students, families and community members about the importance of preventive health care while using her platform to spread the word about organ donation.
“What I take away every single day is that I was given a gift from someone who lost their life,” she said. “I must make the best of that situation. None of us knows how long we have. We should look at every day as a gift because life really is so special.”
Theresa Stratford
Recent Transplant stories
