Kidney Disease Stories

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Jamie’s Fight Like a Girl Story (Kidney Disease)

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May
20
2013
Jamie's Story (Kidney Disease)LR

I was always such an athletic person; from childhood through high school, so it was a huge shocker when I was diagnosed with FSGS, a type of chronic kidney disease, in August of 2009 at 26 years old. I was later diagnosed with celiac disease in April of 2011. As a child my parents told me I would always complain of not feeling well. When asked what was wrong, I could never articulate what I was feeling, so I unfortunately got labeled as a hypochondriac. I played soccer from the age of 4 and up. I noticed in high school, I felt like I was being slowed down, as if there was a force holding me back from running as fast. I had also developed what I thought was just a sensitivity to greasy foods, so I stayed away from pizza and certain sandwiches which triggered me to not feel well. Speeding up to 2005, I started feeling a lot more fatigued than normal. I went to my primary care physician and had some blood work done. The results showed I was mildly anemic, and there were also some … [Read more...]

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Elizabeth’s Fight Like A Girl Story (Kidney Disease)

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May
15
2013
Elizabeth's Story (Kidney Disease) LR

Hello, My name is Elizabeth. Everyone who knows me calls me Liz. I am a 25 year old mom of 2 wonderful children and have the most supportive husband in the entire world. We have been together for 9 years. When I was 18 I started having a lot of back pain and was sick all the time and I gained a bunch of weight. My doctors could not figure out why. The doctors had no explanation for my problems, they dismissed them. I struggled with bladder infections and severe pain for 2 years. One month before I turned 21 I found out that I had a stone 3 inches in diameter in my right kidney. From that moment forward my world changed. I was diagnosed with kidney disease at the age of 21 in 2007. I began the first of MANY long and often painful hospital stays, I was in the hospital sometimes for weeks at a time; hooked up to tubes and machines and away from my family. In 2009 the doctor told me there was nothing more they could do and that my right kidney had to come out. By this time, I had … [Read more...]

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Anna’s Fight Like a Girl Story (Fraser’s Syndrome and Cervical Cancer)

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May
15
2013
Anna's Story (FS and Cervical) LR

When I was a child, I had been afflicted with many medical issues such as ear infections with four sets of tubes, a stigmatism in my left eye, asthma and scoliosis. At the age of 5, I had been suffering from what they thought was fsgs. But little did I know and all my doctors know that down the road I would face life threatening illnesses that would become the toughest, life changing events ever in my young life. Not only would I be on the edge of death, but I also would be on the precipice of the most spiritual awakenings of my life. My first life-changing event came on October 25, 2002. At the age of 15, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and had to undergo a major surgery to remove my ovaries and fallopian tubes, while my uterus is still intact. I also underwent 3 rounds of chemotherapy which took 5 months of treatment. If the doctors hadn't caught it before that Christmas, I would not have seen my 16th Birthday. I managed to keep up with my studies through my sophomore year … [Read more...]

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Judi’s Fight Like a Girl Story (Polycystic Kidney Disease aka PKD)

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Dec
31
2011
Judi's Story (PKD)

In brief I was born with polycystic kidney disease and began suffering symptoms when I was in my late teens. The cysts are in my kidneys and liver which caused both organs to be enlarged. When a cyst itself enlarged and became engorged with blood or infection they became extremely painful. Eventually they would rupture and cause internal bleeding for which the only "cure" was to lie flat on my back for weeks at a time. I once figured out that if I added my "down time" all together out of 16 years in my twenties and thirties I spent an entire three of those years flat on my back in bed and/or on the sofa trying to get the bleeding to stop. It was disabling and caused me to limit and exclude many activities I wanted to do and it also meant that I couldn't wear many types of clothing that I wanted to wear because I could have nothing touch my waist – ever. It would cause the cysts to act up and bleed if I did. In spite of all of this my husband and I did adopt ( because we didn't … [Read more...]

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Nicole’s Mom’s Fight Like A Girl Story (Kidney Disease)

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Apr
10
2011
Kidney Disease Power Story

Like anyone, I was afraid for my mom. She found out she had kidney disease when she got pregnant with her first child (me). She had a baby girl in May of 1994 and got married in February 1995. She was only 29 when she had her first kid and her kidneys were already decreasing in percentage. It was mostly caused by her high blood pressure when she was 21. The doctors told her she probably wouldn’t be able to have anymore kids. But that all changed in 1997 when she was pregnant with her second blessing, Krystina. She was born in April. She had another kid in September of 2000. Her name is Kelsey. Everything got worse from that point on. She ended up with only one working kidney. In April of 2008 she had to go into surgery to put a tube in from her kidney to the outside of her belly. She came home that day but she could barely do anything simple like sweep or lift more than 5 pounds. Her one and only working kidney was down to 13 percent and after the surgery it … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Kidney Disease Stories