Something To Look Forward To.

The first time my consultant spoke about a kidney transplant, I was a bit shocked and trying to hold back the tears, so I smiled and nodded through most of what he said and pretended I was ok. Everything he said that day is a blur, but there is one small thing that he said that completely saved me.

First of all, let me explain my background....
Throughout my teenage years, I competed in rugby, showjumping, hunter trials and pony games. I took the title of Cork Female champion in Tae Kwon Do when I was 16. Throughout my college years, I spent little time in sports but once finished, I started running for fitness. Roll on the birth of my first child and I increased my running distance whilst pushing a buggy in an attempt to lose the baby weight. 3 years later I ran my first marathon (unknowingly whilst 7 weeks pregnant). A few weeks later, I was diagnosed with kidney disease and five months later, I gave birth to my son. I started running again when he was 4 weeks old and ran a half marathon when he was 12 weeks.  I followed this 10 months later with the New York Marathon. A knee injury put a damper on my running so I switched, instead, to weight lifting. Cue my year of bodybuilding at competition level. I stood on stage twice. Once at the National RIBBF competition and second at the National NBFI competition. I began to feel a bit worn out from the 6 day training regime and decided to challenge myself elsewhere. I wanted to learn how to swim. This may not sound like a huge challenge, but considering I feel nervous in the deep end of the swimming pool, to me, this is huge. So, through spells of anaemia, thyroid dysfunction and all the while my kidney issues in the background, I learned how to swim. Most importantly, I learned how to trust in my abilities in the water. My next step is to progress to open water swimming.
Why is all of this relevant? Well, my point is, I don't do well resting. I don't look forward to a day on the couch watching TV (its great once in a while to do a movie or a series stint, but not every day). I like being active. I don't train because I'm afraid I'll get fat. I don't train because I want someone else to admire how I look. I love my body. I'm not being vain when I say it. I just think my body is amazing - to go through what its been through and still be able to 'do stuff'. What an amazing machine! I want to train because I love my body. I want to use it to its full ability for all the years I can. I want to experience all the things my body is capable of while I have the capacity to do it.
I think that this, more than anything else, is why I feel like I have been punched in the gut with this whole business of kidney disease.

But back to what my consultant told me on the day of my meeting with him. He said " Well look, there is always a silver lining, at least now you might finally get your shot at becoming an elite athlete". He proceeded to tell me about the world transplant games and since then, I have been dreaming about them. I want so much for the emphasis to be off 'resting' and back to doing. There are days when Im completely ZEN and I do my yoga at home and practice some mindfulness. But there are also days where I think "For Gods sake - I don't want any medals or prizes, I just want to train and be back to a place where I can enjoy my body and not be afraid for it.

I'm sure that others awaiting transplant feel like this. But I also know that wanting to be so active is not everyones cup of tea. Some people do prefer a cup of tea and a biscuit and daytime TV. And thats ok too. Even if it never happens, thats what I'm going to aim for. I reckon if I aim high enough, I might hit my target somewhere. Staying positive - mostly xx

"I Can't Eat What Now".....

February 2nd 2016.

Talk about adding insult to injury - I got some blood results back yesterday which explain the reason I have been sleeping all day and all night and never feeling rested. So, now I need to take some medication to increase the oxygen carrying capacity of my blood and I'll be back swimming lengths in no time.

But what was also noticed was that my phosphate levels were quite high. Normal phosphorous levels sit between 2.5 to 4.5 mg/dL and phosphorous is essential for building healthy strong bones and repair of cell tissue. For now, we will just say that mine was quite a bit higher than that. Why am I even talking about this? Well, for a food lover, this has dire implications.

Previous therapies saw patients stop eating. So then, they had a normal phosphorous level but were half starved! These days, CKD (Chronic Kidney Disease) patients are advised to cut a number of different foods from their diet which, in the long term, will keep them healthier and will in my case, put the need for dialysis on the slightly longer short term finger.

I met the most beautiful woman a couple of weeks ago. She contacted my facebook page after seeing that I was to go on the transplant list. We sat over coffee for two hours and chatted like old friends, sharing stories and to be fair...I grilled her for most of it. She explained all the dietary restrictions to me and how she got around them, but I still didn't really think about having to do it. I suppose thats the whole denial thing!

Well here I am, slap bang in the middle of a reality I keep pushing to the place in my mind reserved for unicorns and leprechauns. And I have been told I have to seriously limit these foods because my life (I never thought I would say this) depends on it. When phosphorous levels become too high in a normal person, the body just excretes it through the kidneys and you go back to being a happy, normo'phos (yes, I made that one up). However, in those with CKD, the levels build up in the blood and in the long term, begin to leech calcium from the bones and deposit into the blood stream.
My simplified knowledge of the situation is that you end up with brittle bones, osteoporosis and more seriously, calcium deposits throughout your vasculature. Yes, that equals heart attack, stroke and lots of unpleasantness that we really want to avoid.

What do I need to do now? Well, I have been given a list of foods that I have to either exclude or limit hugely. Lets get down to the analysis and ask ourselves what the hell I'm going to do now.....

Chocolate; Sorry.......what? Yes, chocolate. I have been advised to look for treats in jelly babies as phos levels are high even in the raw cacao that I love! "Ok, stay calm Fiona....you can switch to having nut butters for treats". Now whats next on the list....

Nuts: Sh*t!

Green Veg: WTF??????

Dairy products; To include milk (thats ok, I can switch to coconut milk in my coffee, I think). But that also means that yoghurts and cheese are out too. Someone better come up with something to have on my nachos - inventors....get working! Iv'e just realised that this includes ice cream.....(insert crying emojii)

Beans: Thats ok, I hate baked beans. But wait....this includes lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans.....just all the beans I love and use to fill salads and sandwiches and eat on my low protein days.

Protein; Don't even get me started....thats a whole other world of pain. Although Im told that when I start dialysis, I can increase my intake to about 1.4g/kg of body weight. This is just about ok for a girls who would happily live on fillet steak alone.

Other foods; Here is where I have to do a 360 on my entire train of thought. Seeds, whole grain, nuts, bran.....yes, all the stuff that we label as 'healthy' is gone off the list. So now, I swap all my brown food for white. White pasta (yuck, Ill stick to my rice pasta) , white basmati rice (I have a feeling I will be starting up my own paddy field), white bread (I will stick to GF) and whatever else comes in that shade of pale.

So now, I start work on my most challenging client yet! Trying to put a food plan together is going to be tough. I have a 'renal' recipe book that I am going to try to make my own. Everything is salt free so I have to work hard on flavours. I am partial to being a size 10, so I will have to balance intake around my energy output but a few lbs either way won't bother me all that much. At the moment, my health is top of my priority list.

Any recipe ideas, send them on my way. And please remember, if you do nothing else, carry a donor card or consider giving someone you love the gift of life with a live donation. For further information on renal disease or renal transplant, go to www.ika.ie or www.kidney.org

To follow me on facebook, click www.facebook.com/fionasfitnessdiary

All feedback welcome folks. xx

This is the beginning.

December, 2015.

I met with my consultant today. He has been my renal consultant since I was diagnosed with Primary Glomerulo Nephritis in 2009. After a long year of many ups and downs, I have finally been told I need a kidney transplant. They don't use those words when they tell you though. They say ...'renal replacement therapy....'. I don't know if that is supposed to soften the blow a little and maybe it actually did, but the end result is the same.
I smiled, told him we would discuss it further after Christmas then I left his office.

That really was the worst thing I could have done. I spent the entire Christmas break wondering, guessing and imagining what was coming next. I didn't know whether I would need dialysis, if I was going straight on the list, whether I was actually well and it was just a precautionary measure (we always live in hope eh?). I just didn't know - and that was a mistake on my part because I couldn't enjoy Christmas.

I spent alternate days crying and being fine. Every other day I wondered how the kids would cope if I died either waiting for a kidney, in surgery or due to some other complication. It seems silly in retrospect but I'm allowing myself those feelings - they were very real.
Friends asked how I was feeling and I told them ...."time for a new kidney, bit of a bummer, but just have to get on with it..." with a smile on my face and a "sure it'll be grand"..totally downplaying what was to be an enormous upheaval in my life.
I can say now, that I am sure it will all be fine. Like many before me, I may need dialysis and the next few months or years will be spent waiting for a kidney. In theory, its a simple procedure but from an emotional perspective its huge. Somebody else, in otherwise perfect health, will die...and I will get their kidney. Let that one sink in for a minute.

At the moment, I am not sick. To look at me, my hair is shiny, my make up is done, I wear nice clothes and I don't walk around like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders. People tell me every day I look great. Thank you! I like to look well. Appearance means a lot to me. For any of you who workout frequently - you know the satisfaction of looking in the mirror and being happy with your body. But the truth is that no matter what I look like, my body isn't working efficiently. I'm not filtering out all the rubbish that would usually be filtered out by my kidneys and this is building up in my blood. The result is that I feel hungover. I gave up alcohol because I hated the hangovers and now, ironically, I have a perpetual one. My head feels foggy, I have an underlying feeling of nausea that just sits at the periphery, I have lost my appetite for nice food and I am constantly exhausted. It is probably the last of these that bothers me the most. I am a "do-er". I swim, I cycle, I run, I lift weights, I ride horses... as you can see, I live a very active lifestyle and I love it. At the moment, I can just about manage a walk on the beach 3 times a week. Even at that, I spend 2 hrs asleep in the middle of every day on top of my 8 hrs at night. THIS bothers me. I understand that it is important to spend some time on me, on just being, but understanding and accepting are two different things.

So, what is next for Fiona? Tomorrow, I go for blood tests that will check my blood type, assess my level of antibodies and basically put me into a category for they type of kidney I will need for transplant. It's not just a case of 'join the queue' and wait until its my turn. There are lots of factors to look at when searching for a match. Following this, I will get an appointment for Beaumont Hospital to meet with the transplant team and hopefully get a place on the waiting list.

All I can do from here is to take one day at a time and keep my fingers crossed that I stay as healthy as I can in the interim. Its a wait and see game from here on in.