Christina and Michael Gilchrist have quickly become known as “BLIND CHICK LIVING” & “THE CARETAKER” alongside Christina’s service dog, Moose. Christina has a jaw-dropping kidney journey:
In her early teens, she was diagnosed with kidney disease. While pregnant in her early 20’s, she developed toxemia, resulting in seizures, which caused retina and optic nerve damage, leading to blindness, as well as high blood pressure, which led to total kidney failure. Her oldest brother donated a kidney; unfortunately that kidney was rejected within 2 years. She began dialysis while managing all the tasks of a young single mother. After more than five years, she received the call again and had a deceased donor kidney donated, and decided with this transplant she was going to start LIVING and having fun. That is where Michael slid into Christina’s DM’s! She started having the time of her life with Michael but started rejecting her donated kidney within 2 years again. Despite being blind, she INSISTED on doing peritoneal dialysis and would not take “no” for an answer. She kept living on peritoneal dialysis, doing dialysis all over from dry camping with solar panels to vacations. She got married and did PD on her honeymoon, and yes, even on the back of a motorcycle! PD stopped being effective, so she transitioned to home hemodialysis with Michael’s help. Michael felt he needed support, and not being able to find a support group that fit his needs, he started his own. That was the start of LIVING on dialysis!!
We have traveled all over the country advocating for dialysis and sharing how we are LIVING!! In fact our dialysis machine is in our hotel room right now!! As you can see Christina and Michaels story is very jaw dropping so just #blindchickliving and you can follow us on our journey. “I don’t live to do dialysis, I DO DIALYSIS TO LIVE”, “Don’t tell me I can’t, show me how I can!”
