Several months ago, I mentioned having written a letter to the family of my donor. I did this not only to say thank you, but also because I wanted his family to see that I was a real, live person whose life has been changed by their loved one. I also wrote it knowing that out of the relatively small percentage of transplant recipients who send letters, very few ever hear back, so it was highly
It’s probably no surprise to readers of this blog that I suffer from anxiety. In fact it was actually the subject of one of my very first posts, a couple of years ago! In between writing that post and writing this one, what has changed? Everything and nothing. Obviously there have been some fairly major changes in my life. I started dialysis, then unexpectedly got a transplant very quickly and am now physically healthier than
When I was reading the NHS guidance on transplant recipients writing to donor families, I saw that we are allowed to include photographs of ourselves, provided they are free from identifying information like obvious landmarks, name badges, street signs or children in school uniform. After doing some research on social media, I discovered that many people send two photos, one taken prior to transplant and one taken afterwards. The juxtaposition of these two pictures is
A few days ago I wrote about how I have brilliant friends who have never made me feel “less than” for having been sick, and who, even though they’ve never been where I am, have just kind of “got on with it” and encouraged me to do the same. What I didn’t mention in that letter is that I also have another group of friends. These ones do get it. They get it because they’ve
Dear Friends, The last several years have been anything but easy for me. To go from being a perfectly healthy twenty-something grad student to somebody sick enough to need an organ transplant is a big adjustment, to say the least. This is my life, and I’m the one who’s had to live through all of these things, but I know they’ve impacted you too. No man is an island, so John Donne says. When I
I’m Holly. I’m a writer, speaker and kidney patient advocate currently living in northern England.
