My Kidney Journey*:
5 Things I’ll Never Forget

A few weeks ago I was invited to be the patient speaker at a KQuIP event for medical staff here in North West England. Honestly, this was a bit of a daunting prospect! I’m not a confident speaker at the best of times, so the thought of standing up and doing a 20-minute presentation about some very personal, sensitive aspects of my life, in front of an audience vastly more knowledgeable than I am was

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Transplantiversary?

Long before I knew I’d eventually have one myself, I watched my friends with transplants celebrate their annual “transplantiversary”. These are “birthdays” for donated organs; a means of recognising how long the recipients have had them, and an opportunity to celebrate another year of life that in many cases would not have been possible otherwise. Once I started waiting for my transplant, I wondered on a few occasions what date it would be. I naturally

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The other side of the story; Dear Holly

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

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Finding the path

After I’d sat down and written about everything that happened to me in the last year and a bit, plus another couple of posts inspired by conversations I have had with people, I realised I had reached the point where I had to decide what on earth to write about next! I have a huge file on my laptop of ideas for potential posts. I have opened this file many times and read the list, but

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Anxiety, ducks and Weebles.

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

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