When I was 10 years old, I got a cold that never completely healed, and I also got these strange spots on my skin. Apparently, it had attacked my kidneys, and I was peeing completely black for months. They sent me four hours away from my home to the children’s hospital, where I spent three months the first time but kept going back for about three years on and off.
They got my kidneys to function at 90% when I was about 14 and turning into a teenager. I moved away from home and stopped taking all my medications, pretended I wasn’t sick and lived a completely normal life. Which I’m extremely thankful for because I will never be able to live that way again.
When I turned 21, I was living in Calgary and had a job as a chef for two years. By this time, I had a stroke, and it was then that they noticed my kidney function percentage was at 30. Within those six months, it had dropped so quickly, I put on dialysis. I started peritoneal dialysis for two years in 2020. I hated it, but they would not let me switch to hemodialysis because of the whole COVID situation. But I was admitted into the hospital and begged to be switched, so they finally did. I just hit the mark before I got my transplant just now.
