Life wasn’t easy before my kidney transplant, treatments were painful and tedious sometimes. Years ago, I was diagnosed with kidney disease, due to high blood pressure. At that time didn’t understood exactly what was going on until I was referred to a specialist, and she explained that sometime I will have to go on dialysis. I was always an athletic woman, playing soccer, jogging, walking, exercising, but when my kidneys couldn’t clean my blood, and I started suffering from extreme fatigue, I felt devastated. My life change completely to the point that even climbing the stairs of my apartment was so difficult and strenuous.
It was already about 18 months on treatment when one night I got home from dialysis, as usual, so tired and exhausted from the treatment, sat down and watch some television, and when I was ready to go to bed, my phone rang, it was from the hospital. A kidney was waiting for me.
The surgery took place on Saturday morning, and the recovery was painful, I stayed 6 days in the hospital, including super bowl game the day after my surgery, where my Steelers played, but still under the effects of the anesthesia and in pain I couldn’t watched.
Once I was at home, I started to walk a few steps, then a little bit more around the complex, and in few months I was walking and jogging a couple miles, until one day I was invited by a friend of mine to Red Rock Canyon, to hike and try to climb some rocks, it wasn’t easy the first time, but then I came back again and again and now I go every week, sometimes twice a week, to climb a different peak, and let me tell you something, is not only easier every time, but when my kidneys failed and it was so difficult for me to climb the stairs, well, now climbing about 2000 feet in some of these peaks, is easier than going up to my apartment when I was sick!!
I am very grateful because I didn’t have to wait to long to get a new kidney, but I am more grateful and thankful because there was a very nice person who decides to be a donor, and that is something to be admired, and I honor and remember that person as my hero and my guardian angel, not only because practically save my life, but also, because now I have the opportunity to live every moment to the fullest knowing that now, she is with me and I take care of her and she take care of me.
