World Kidney Day: “A renal journey doesn’t have to be the end of your adventures; it can be the start of new ones”

Everyone has dates that stay in their mind, like the time you ran the London Marathon or graduated. For me it’s Tuesday 7^th March 2006, which was the day I started dialysis.

My very first dialysis was on a Fresenius Medical Care satellite unit. Those four-hour long dialysis sessions either go incredibly quickly, or they drag like you wouldn’t believe. Over time you get to know what helps make the time go faster, and the Fresenius Medical Care units are great at providing things to do.

Life isn’t easy for a renal patient. All the things that people take for granted become monumental tasks. Doing anything on dialysis requires a little more planning, but it’s important to not let that stop you. In 2012, six and a half years after starting dialysis I was lucky enough to have my kidney transplant. Five days after that, I had my first wee. Having had no kidneys at all for six years, that really did seem incredible!

Sports and chronic kidney disease

Sport is something many dialysis patients feel excluded from. The European Transplant and Dialysis Sports Championships were launched in Athens in 2000, to encourage those living with kidney disease to participate in a sporting event, while also receiving the medical and community support they need. There is a range of sports you can participate in; from table tennis and badminton to golf, cycling, and my favourite, swimming. This year the games are taking place in the UK, in Oxford from 21^st to 28^th August 2022. I’d like to encourage patients, who are able, to participate.

When I was diagnosed with CKD, I had never imagined I’d be traveling the globe, swimming in pools all over the world, and become a swimming world champion.

Swimming for gold

Hearing the words ‘world champion’, you might think I was already a big swimmer before being diagnosed with CKD. But I only swam for leisure occasionally. My first swimming competition was the British Transplant Games in 2015, three years after I had my transplant. I was keen to compete in the games in any way I could, and swimming was the only sport I thought I might be able to do. Turned out I really could swim!

The following year, I competed at the European Transplant and Dialysis Championship in Finland and in the meantime, I had decided to join a swimming club to try and improve my time and stamina. Since then, I have competed in the European Transplant and Dialysis Sports Championships twice, in 2016 (Finland) and 2018 (Sardinia). I’ve also taken part in the 2017 World Transplant Games in Spain where I won a bronze and silver medal, and then in 2019 in Newcastle, where I won a bronze and gold!

Sadly, the 2020 games were cancelled due to the pandemic, but I’m still training three times a week, and I’m looking forward to competing in this year’s championship.

What I will tell anyone who is starting dialysis is that a renal journey doesn’t have to be the end of your adventures, it can be the start of new ones.

If anyone is interested in The European Transplant and Dialysis Sports Championships you can see the programme here.