January 2009
Bren was diagnosed with Kidney failure just before his 21st birthday - 2000
We met the next year, we were only together for 3 months when he got sick and was admitted to hospital. It was through a routine scan that they found a Renal cell carcinoma (cancer of the kidney) his right kidney was removed October 2001 and thankfully he was contained and hadn't spread.
Because of his Renal failure and one kidney having been removed his body couldn't cope his condition advanced to End stage renal failure.
He had a fistula (joining of an artery and another smaller vein to create a super vein and Haemodialysis access) created in Dec 01.
He went down hill fast and had to begin Dialysis in April 02. He was told that while dialysis does ALOT of good it can also hinder some things eg. Having babies. We were told it would probably never happened naturally for him - HAHA we have definately showed them - 3 times over!!
Because of the cancer he had to prove to be cancer free for at least 2 years before he could go on the Transplant list. Add 4 more hospitalisations (lasting at least 2 weeks at a time) in there for various reasons.
He became an active Transplant list member in March 2007 - one week later we got the call we had been waiting for. There was a kidney ready and waiting for him at the Princess Alexandra. So many emotions for both of us. It was short lived though. At the routine Chest xray before things got started they found something on his lungs that hadn't been there on a previous scan. Our hearts sank as everyones first thought was that it was Cancer.
Months of waiting, a lung specialist later and he got the all clear it was scar tissue, most likely from a simple chest infection. But they also found he had Strongeloides (sp) basically a worm that enter through the skin and makes its way to your lungs. Whilst they are active you CAN NOT be transplanted as the Immune supressive drugs would mean they would take over his lungs and he would have a 10% chance of survival.
Everything finally got sorted and he was almost back of the transplant list in Dec 2008 until a blood test showed that his white blood cells are elevated so this needs to be investigated first.
As of now he is waiting on a Haemotology appointment to see why they are up thats in mid January.
All of this of course puts our family under alot of strain and pressure but we are happy with our 3 miracle babies
