In May 2012 I was working at an Art consultant in Windsor,  I became quite ill at work and got sent home but I felt too ill to drive back to Bedfordshire so I stayed over night at my Mother's house. I was in a lot of pain and I felt so sick, I went to bed very early night but when I had to get up to go to the bathroom and there was just blood in the toilet. I took some pain relief and then tried to get some sleep but I was in so much pain, I barely slept a wink. The next morning I called my doctor for an appointment, I drove 50 miles back to Bedforshire but by the time I had got home I couldn't even see straight so I got my neighbour to drive round to my doctors surgery, I went into my appointment and placed a urine sample on the table in a little sample pot and it was so red, the doctor looked at it with a bit of a shocked look and then he did my blood pressure and it was through the roof, it was so high that they thought the machine was broken. The room then filled up with doctors who all looked quite shocked, they gave me a letter and told me to the closest hospital, I got taken round to the A &E department where I got told my kidneys had failed. We were all in shock and I was then rushed to the Lister Hospital in the back of an ambulance, to go onto a specialist renal unit. The next few days/ weeks were a blur and I had several operations for temporary lines put in and then a PD catheter (peritoneal dialysis.)  After a few months I manged to reverse some of the declined  back up to function up to about 30 %.  I was stable for 2 years and then in 2014 after moving down to Dorset my kidneys failed Again, I was in over Christmas and New Years. I was then put back on emergency dialysis, I was also so anaemic that I needed 7 blood transfusions and because my platelets were so dangerously low I needed 7 plasma exchanges too (to get rid of all the bad plasma.) I was then put back on PD again but I got peritonitis twice and we missed our cruise that we had booked for ages. I had to have my Pd tube taken out and then had my chest line put in but that had to be moved from the left side to the right because it wasn't working. I ended up getting massive clot in my right arm from my elbow up to my collar bone and then I missed a family wedding in Cyprus. I was put on the Transplant list, I waited for 15 month for I got my call on the 14th September 2016. I'm now post transplant and recovering well and gaining confidence and enjoying my second chance at life every day. 

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If you have any questions or want to find out more please click on the links, please register to donate blood and the organ donation register and please check out the link to the charity I am an Advocate for Live Life Give Life and please look at Kidney Research.