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It has been just five hours since her last dialysis treatment, and already Leslie Cheteyan is worrying about being late for her next round. As soon as the clock hits 12:45 p.m., she dashes out of her history course, walks half a mile across campus and hops into her car. Twenty minutes later, the 19-year-old sophomore parks in front of her house in Teaneck and heads for her bedroom.

There, Cheteyan pulls out a catheter from under her sweater. She connects it to a small dialysis machine near her bed, lies down, and hopes that her blood will be cleansed enough so she can think clearly in time for a 2:30 quiz on partial fraction integrals.

Kidney failure has forced this routine on Cheteyan. In 2001, her body rejected a kidney transplanted two years earlier from her mother. Subsequent dialysis treatments have kept her alive but have waned in their effectiveness.

Some days she is a ball of energy, going from class to dialysis treatment to her job managing Little League umpires. Other days she is bedridden. Such a lifestyle would be difficult for anyone. But for Cheteyan, the ailment and subsequent surgeries have also shattered dreams of a career in athletics.

The determination Leslie Cheteyan once had on the court is helping her get through trying times.

She is a former Teaneck High School basketball star who many say could have played top-level college ball.

"Basketball was everything to her," said Elaine Cheteyan, Leslie's mother. "That was her identity."

The two stages of Cheteyan's life stand apart in her bedroom. On one side is a testament to her once-promising basketball career. Posters of Michael Jordan adorn the wall, and trophies and team photos are heaped on a dresser. On the other side of the room, dozens of boxes of dialysis fluid are stacked to the ceiling.

"Sometimes it's hard looking at the college basketball games," said Cheteyan, who is in the second year of her wait for a kidney transplant at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York. The average wait is six years. "Sometimes I see them and I know I could be out there playing."

When Cheteyan was 2 1/2 years old, she began having stomach pains and bloody diarrhea and soon couldn't urinate. After months of tests, doctors concluded that she had contracted E. coli bacteria from something she ate or drank. Cheteyan was diagnosed with hemolytic uremic syndrome, a rare condition sometimes called "hamburger disease" that destroys red blood cells and damages the lining of the blood vessel walls.

Cheteyan was hospitalized for two months at Columbia Presbyterian. She recuperated, and before long she was in perfect health. But doctors warned her parents that as a result of the disease, Cheteyan could lose kidney function when she reached puberty.

"Growing up we treated her like she was OK, and she was," Elaine Cheteyan said. Her parents enrolled her in several of the township's sports leagues. From an early age, Cheteyan excelled. But there was something about that indoor Fisher-Price hoop set her dad, Dennis, bought for her as a tot that caught Cheteyan's attention. She would spend hour after hour shooting Nerf balls before her parents put up a regulation-size hoop on the backyard deck.

Cheteyan only got better. After dominating several Teaneck youth leagues with her slick dribbling, she joined the New Jersey Lady Monarchs, one of the best girls' Amateur Athletic Union basketball teams in the state. As a preteen she started for the team in tournaments in Ohio, Louisiana and the tristate area.

Before she even stepped on the court as a high schooler, Cheteyan was fast becoming one of the state's best players. She would play the game anywhere, against anyone. "I would drive by [Votee] park and she would be the only girl on the court [with the boys], which was amazing," said Tony Williams, Cheteyan's coach on the Monarchs. "Most girls are scared to do that. She never was. She was as good as them."

But in her freshman year of high school, just as puberty hit, Cheteyan began losing kidney function. She tired very easily, yet she was still able to play for Teaneck High School's varsity basketball team -- as a starter. Doctors said her condition would worsen if she did not receive a transplant. Her mother was a perfect match.

On July 10, 1999, surgeons removed one of Elaine's kidneys and placed it in her daughter. For a year everything was going well. Cheteyan was a junior and having her best season on the court for the Teaneck Highwaymen. In a game against Nutley, she scored a career-best 31 points.

"We were surprised that she was able to play in high school at all," said Williams, who believes Cheteyan would have been a lock to play Division I college basketball if not for her ailment. "That tells a lot about her. Basketball is a contact sport, and she was out there after getting a kidney transplant."

Her family was optimistic that she would have full recovery. "We were all on a high," Elaine Cheteyan said. "The further you get away from a problem, the more optimistic you become."

A year after the transplant, a routine blood test revealed trouble. Cheteyan had begun rejecting the kidney. At first, doctors thought she would recover. She continued to play basketball her senior year and was named co-captain. But by the summer, the kidney had shut down.
Cheteyan underwent emergency hemodialysis in which her blood was cleansed through a machine. She was immediately placed on Columbia Presbyterian's waiting list for a kidney donation.

Since then she has had three surgeries. Cheteyan had a catheter placed in her abdomen so she could receive peritoneal dialysis at home. But the tube didn't work at first. She had another tube inserted, but it caused a rupture in her intestines. She was forced to have surgery to treat the hernia.

The peritoneal dialysis, which uses glucose to filter waste products and fluid from the blood, has not worked as well as her doctors had hoped.

[On March 14, she faced surgery yet again. A surgeon at Teaneck's Holy Name Hospital placed a fistula in her chest for hemodialysis. The surgery was a success, and now Cheteyan goes to the hospital three times a week for three to four hours to have her blood cleansed. She is scheduling treatment around her classes.]

Cheteyan's new goal is to become a math teacher. But college life is difficult. She is connected to the dialysis machine throughout the night and gets only a few hours' sleep. Yet, she still takes three classes each semester. "I want to live as normal a life as possible," she said, "even if I don't have basketball."

She has already seen plenty of former high school and club teammates get full scholarships to play basketball in college. "There are a lot of choices I can't make because of this," Cheteyan said, pointing to her dialysis machine. "It has changed my life completely."

It has also changed her family, who have become experts in organ donor policies. They have had scores of relatives and friends tested to see if they could be a potential donor, but so far no luck. The Cheteyans are asking that anyone with O-type blood who would be willing to donate a kidney call them at 201-837-8589.

Several years ago before her kidney ailments, Cheteyan painted the phrase "Determination is More Important Than Talent!" on her bedroom wall. It was something one of her basketball coaches constantly preached to the team. Now it takes on new meaning.

"I believe it," she said. "Determination is more important than anything. When you think about it, it's so true."

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