“There are so many amazing charities out there doing fabulous work. Kidney research Yorkshire was suggested to my mum. This felt like the obvious choice, as it is an illness very close to our hearts.
7 years ago my mum suddenly became extremely unwell; to cut a long story short she was in chronic renal failure. Over the first terrifying few weeks, at ST James’ Hospital she nearly lost her life on several occasion.
In a matter of a few days she went from an active 59 year old to just a shadow of her former self. I myself am a paediatric nurse and to find myself going from my professional role to being the daughter of a seriously ill patient was unbelievably hard.
After 2 years of dialysis, continuous infections, many hospital admissions and several invasive procedures for my mum, my dad had the amazing news that he could be a live donor. This filled me with so many feelings and emotions. Joy, happiness, excitement, But also utter dread and fear of seeing both of my parents undergoing a major operation and their fate was out of my hands.
All went well for dad and he breezed through it like the hero he is. But what we imagined would be a life changing cure for my mum didn’t appear to happen. The kidney partially worked for 2 years. But mum never felt particularly well and had continuous infections. Again we were back to 3 times per week dialysis, and very limited quality of life for my mum and constant worry for our family.
In May this year after a lot of thought and discussions with my husband I decided to begin the testing process to try to become a donor for my extremely brave mum.
The very same weekend that the donor team received my paper work to begin testing, my mum received a phone call which change our lives forever. There was a donor match for her!
The transplant was successful and I could see the mum I knew pre kidney failure. It is still early days, she is prone to infections but she now has energy and enthusiasm again after so many years. We have got our mum/ wife/ Nana/ friend back again.
We can’t thank everyone enough who has helped to keep my mum alive for all these years.
She has had amazing care and support throughout every dark moment and for that we are so very grateful.
Thanks to charities such as Kidney Research Yorkshire this awful disease is becoming more discussed and people are more aware of this. If it wasn’t for continuous research, my mum would certainly not be here today, and my children wouldn’t have an amazing, strong, positive role model that they can be proud to call their Nana.”
Thank you and well done to Cassie, in total Cassie raised over £900 for this fundraising activity!
