Friday 15th March

Look what happened today!

Momentous day for organ donation

But remember that you still need to talk about your wishes with your families though folks!

Friday 1st to Thursday 14th March

I’ve spent some of the days just not feeling well, I’ve spent all of the days just feeling completely exhausted!

Look who came to visit us in our garden one rainy Sunday 🐸

You can find many stories to read from transplant patients telling you about their own journeys, but its not very often you get to hear from a surgeon. Have a read about this transplant surgeon who was in the amazing team that completed 6 transplants in just over 30 hours last year.

On a lighter note, I often get told that I think about things too much! 🥴🤯

Its #WorldKidneyDay

Both of my daughters have Polycystic Kidney Disease which unfortunately they have inherited from their dad. He had a successful kidney transplant in 2011. It is probably quite likely that they will both need a transplant themselves as the disease progresses.

Have a read of this post which has been written today by Kelly, one of my daughter’s friends.

#worldkidneyday from diagnosis (2004) to failure (2014) to transplant (2015) to rejection (2016) and then to dialysis (2018) now I’m live on the transplant list and waiting for a perfect match! 2019! ☺️ #GIVEMEYOURORGANS. #organdonation

So let me talk you through some of this (this is going to be one long post).

Diagnosis: One day in 2004 i woke up with a swollen face, i was only 9 at this point so my parents took me to the doctors, they put it down to an allergic reaction as most doctors would, it’s only when they done bloods they realised something was wrong with my kidneys, i got sent to the children’s ward and my parents got told i had a rare condition called Nephrotic Syndrome. It was also a leap year day when i got diagnosed so i always remember the date. 🤪

Biopsy: Now I’m not 100% sure on the year but i think it was about 2011/2012 they investigated further and took some of my kidney, the first biopsy didn’t show anything much so they done a second a while after and it came back with fsgs! I finally had a full diagnosis although no reason behind it.

Treatment: now this is complicated because there’s so many and I’ve probably forgotten some, i remember having; steroids, cyclosporine, retuximab, MMF, plasma exchange, campath, tacrolimus and cyclophosphamide. Some of these were trial drugs so i had massive doses that they wouldn’t give now. I had an allergic reaction to retuximab where my throat closed up and the worst for me was cyclophosphamide (chemo as many people would know it) my hair lost all colour and I’ve been dying it ever since, although it gave me 18 months drug free!

Failure: I eventually got to the point in about 2014/2015 where nothing was working and i was told i would have to start dialysis soon and there were no more treatments options just dialysis or a transplant. If i didn’t pick either I’d eventually die. They told me to decide what dialysis i wanted and start looking for live organ donors.

Transplant testing: once i had the news i needed to look for a donor my mum stepped forward and she was a pretty good match! So they rushed her all through the testing seeming as i wasn’t on dialysis yet! The testing can take upto 12/18 months! It’s like a full body MOT and they would refuse you if you had anything slightly wrong with you. My mum even gave up smoking once she was advised to, they rushed her testing through and i think within about 6 months she’d finished and we had a transplant date!

Transplant: now because we weren’t 100% perfect match i had to go through some treatment before and after to make sure my body would accept the kidney, this was plasma exchange and campath! The transplant happened 9th of July 2015! Everything seemed to go perfect, a couple of days later my hb levels were low and i had to have a blood transfusion but other than that everything was fine! Mum recovered well and to this day she says she feels better than she did!

Transplant medication: so the medication you have to take is actual toxic to your body and getting the levels correct isn’t easy. You have to take upto 30 odd tablets a day for the rest of your life just to stay alive. You don’t really hear this about transplants. The side effects are nasty and your chances of getting cancer are stupidly high.

Rejection: so roughly about 9 months after transplant i had a mild rejection episode (these aren’t uncommon) i got treated with some IV steroids and it seemed to control it! Until a few months later i couldn’t stop getting urine infections and no antibiotics would work! This sent me into dither rejection and by the time they done a biopsy to check on the transplant it was too far gone. So after roughly a year of having a transplant i got the news it was failing.

Dialysis: i managed to hold out until 2018 until i needed to go on dialysis which was a miracle to everyone, you should ideally start at >15% function i stretched it until i was 2% which is pretty dangerous but i felt ok, i was used to throwing up every day and being exhausted all the time. But when i started passing out every few hours and none stop throwing up i knew it was time. I went into hospital had a Tesio line fitted and started dialysis on the same day. Now i do dialysis 3 times a week for 3 hours each time.

Line fitting: the line fitting wasn’t nice. Imagine having your collar bone sliced into a some metal wires being fed into your heart over your collar bone and down the front of your rib cage… whilst awake. Yeah it wasn’t nice but this was my life line. (The remove the metal and leave plastic straws in place)

Dialysis complications: now dialysis is purely there to keep me alive and it’s tough on your body. You have 60ish litres of blood pulled out your body washed and pushed back in so you can imagine your body does not like this. The complications I’ve had are blood pressure issues (low and high) and extremely low blood sugars even though I’m not diabetic. It’s exhausting physically and mentally and nothing and prepare you fully for it.

Active on the list: so i started dialysis July 2018 and by about November/December 2018 i was active on the list! But my antibodies are high so finding a match is hard. I got the news i could be waiting upto 10 years, this would make me 34 by the time i have another chance at life. I’ve been told a live donor is my best bet but you can’t just get someone to donate their kidney to you.

Dialysis extras: so whilst on dialysis you have to watch your diet so closely because your body can’t filter food or drink like anyone else’s can, you can’t have much chocolate chips dairy etc so your diet is mega restricted. If i was to have a banana (luckily i hate them) i could die from high potassium.

I think I’ve covered most of my journey and i hope this raises some awareness. Kidney failure isn’t simple and a transplant is far from a cure. Please donate your organs.

So you can see why #WorldKidneyDay is important to me and my family, to help to raise awareness and to try and help to promote organ donation as much as we can 👍

Monday 25th to Thursday 28th February

A dermatology appointment on Monday at the Churchill Hospital. Just too confusing to say what it was all about! 🤯

We still had the unseasonably warm and sunny weather so I took myself off for a nice walk round and about after my appointment so that I could enjoy some of the sunshine.

There was not a cloud to be seen in that beautiful blue sky.

I take many photos, of anything and everything! As you can see on my ‘Friday pic’ page on this blog I chose a ‘favourite or most relevant photo’ during each week of 2018 and I decided that I would make this ‘year of my life in photos’ mosaic in time for the 4th anniversary of my second liver transplant which was on the 27th.

If I’ve worked it out correctly 3,150 photographs make up this pic!

Now to think of something for my next project …

As always Robyn celebrated the day with me 🙂 A birthday card and a very tasty little chocolate cake with candles on for my new liver’s 4th birthday 🎂

Thank you so much to my donors 💗💙 and their families for giving me this extra four years 😀

Wednesday 20th to Sunday 24th February

A couple of days off work using up holiday allowance, some sorting out done, more stuff for the charity shop 👍

Some lovely weather we’ve had. Very unusual for this time of year but its just heaven for me. I don’t like the cold and it means that I get to feel my fingers! It was time for some extra walks whenever possible to enjoy the warm sunshine.

It was four years since my first transplant on the 22nd.

So my treat to myself to celebrate – a croissant with some tasty strawberries for breakfast.

This was all followed by a weekend of watching sport on the TV.

Six Nations Rugby on Saturday. And a trip to the pub to watch the football, Manchester United v Liverpool on Sunday.

Do you think the reason I so enjoy watching all these sports now is maybe something to do with what I affectionately call my ‘man liver’ 💙

Yay, he did it! Lewis Capaldi made it to Number 1 😀

On a Friday I usually listen to the Official Chart with Scott Mills on Radio 1 and have been following this song’s progress for a few weeks now.

“The track has gone from Number 3 to the top spot. It first entered the Top 100 at Number 66 back in January and has steadily climbed over the past nine weeks.

The music video for “Someone You Loved” was released on 8 February 2019, starring actor Peter Capaldi, who is a relative of Lewis Capaldi. It was directed by filmmaker Phil Beastall. Filming took place in Buxton in late January 2019. The video was made in partnership with charity organisation Live Life Give Life in order to raise awareness for the issue of organ donation. It contains a powerful message of loss and hope, telling a story of a husband who is trying to cope with the death of his wife. She became the heart donor for the young mother of another family, saving her life. Eventually the two families are brought together and the main character knows that his wife’s heart continues to live on.”

Have a watch. I hope you enjoy it 😍

Saturday 16th to Tuesday 19th February

A Saturday night out for my birthday.

A trip to Cosmo, an all you can eat world buffet restaurant in Oxford.

So the evening started with us all waiting at the bus stop – for a bus that just never turned up! (We later found out that there had been a breakdown). So there was then a mad dash back to different homes to pick up two cars so we could make our own way there, as the time of the next bus would just not get us there in time for our booked table.

It was SO incredibly busy in the restaurant. We eventually sat down and ordered our drinks. When they finally arrived, the waiter stood behind Robyn and her boyfriend to hand them out, tipped the tray and knocked a full pint down Warwick’s side and on to Robyn’s coat!

I hadn’t been feeling too great all day, I didn’t really feel like eating so I didn’t have hardly any of the food, but I think all the others enjoyed it 🤔

I don’t think there were any more disasters!

And then on to Junkyard Golf Club for some crazy golf.

We obviously chose the course called ‘Gary’ – “This course has all of your garage needs, think 90’s tunes, a scrapyard slide and a UV garage room! Wind your way through written-off cars and auto-junk in our scrapyard challenge”.

Here’s me!

There was another trip to Oxford on my actual birthday. This time I dragged Robyn and Leah along for a walk down by the river in the rain 🌧😱

We saw some lovely boats on the river!

We found a nice little cafe where I had an afternoon tea 🥪🧁

And then I just chilled and watched the football on the TV in the evening.

Oh and Robyn made me a cake 😋 #spoilt

Monday 4th to Friday 15th February

Well done to Buzz 🚗 for passing his MOT. Phew!

I still keep having days where I just don’t feel well. I don’t really know what that’s all about 😖

And I’m nearly always completely exhausted 😵

Do you remember me telling you last summer about the birds that were living in part of my roof right by my bedroom window and that I had to keep going downstairs and sleeping on the sofa as they were just SO noisy. I’ve still been able to hear them a little throughout the winter so I decided that I needed to do something about it this year as I just don’t want loads more sleepless nights again. When the babies get in there too its such a racket! I asked my brother George (who’s luckily a roofer!) to come with his ladder and sort the problem. There is a hole at the edge of the tiles which is where they get in and out. When he got up there he could see in the hole clearly, the birds had obviously gone out for the morning! He could see quite a big nest and it was empty. So he was then able to put some cement in the hole to block their entrance.

When I looked out later in the afternoon the birds were sat on the aerial as usual, wondering what on earth had happened I imagine 😱 When I came back from work the next day, there they were sat on the aerial again. I do feel so very guilty ☹️

Happy Birthday to my brother Peter 🍻

And Happy Birthday to my sister Julie on Valentines Day ❤️

We’ve had a couple of lovely days weatherwise ☀️

I was able to go for a quite warm and sunny walk in the park after volunteering.

Such a beautiful blue sky. Can you see the moon?

A lovely story for you to read on this Valentines Day!

Valentine’s gift of life