The
KIDNEY CARE
Connection
Spring 2012 MEET OUR 2012 SPOKESWOMAN!
Imagine a 17 year-old girl being told she needs a kidney transplant. Struggling at first, she adjusts to the dramatic changes during her teens. 10 years after the first transplant she’s told she needs a second. This is Kari’s story:
My name is Kari O’Reilly. I want to tell you about how kidney disease has affected my life and how the Kidney Foundation of Canada’s Manitoba Branch has helped me over and over again. At 17 I was diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease. My world changed overnight. I was a serious athlete, vigorously competing in many sports. I suddenly had to adopt a “be careful, don’t get hurt” stance. I thought THAT was hard but then came weight and appetite loss, constant nausea, and FEAR. I did not know what was going to come next. To be honest, some days I wanted to die. Fortunately my mother was found to be a match and I received one of her kidneys. After my recovery I began my life where I had left off. I was getting stronger all the time. Then came devastating news – my kidney was failing AGAIN! I felt hurt, sad, angry and betrayed, many times all at once. Faced with dialysis and the search for another donor, I became withdrawn and depressed. Then came dialysis, which I got to with Handi-Transit. That turned a 3 ½ hour session into an 8+ hour day. For four years, I went to dialysis and waited for a second miracle. That miracle came in the form of my sister Shauna. I received her kidney in 1998 and have lived life to the fullest ever since.
others walk down the path I had already walked. The bursary was the only way I could afford to go back to school. The courses I took enabled me to become an Associate Wealth Advisor at BMO Nesbitt Burns, a job I still enjoy today. Believe it or not there’s more! Knowing I was an athlete, the KFOC invited me to represent Manitoba at the World Transplant Games in Vancouver in 1993. I made friends from all over the world. We compared lives, Kari and her husband Dave in Sydney diets and transplant stories. We “My world changed overnight.” even chuckled at how many of us had “chubby transplant cheeks”. The How has the Kidney Foundation benefited me? There’s been so many memory of walking in the stadium with athletes from all over the world is ways – take your pick! When I was one I will never forget. diagnosed with PKD, the KFOC was a vital source of information on an unfaHow am I feeling now? INCREDIBLE. miliar disease. Everyone at the KFOC My husband can barely keep up with understood the shock and the changes me. I never forget the old adage “You I was about to face. They immediately never know what tomorrow may helped my mother develop the best bring.” I can travel again and have possible diet that helped maintain my been to many parts of the world. I remaining kidney function. As that take nothing for granted and am so function began to decline they educatgrateful for the support of my family, ed us about dialysis and transplant. friends and the Kidney Foundation. I know they will be there, they always Over time PKD began to consume me, leading to social withdrawal and have been. depression. Along came the KFOC With more than 1,000 Manitobans on with a bursary, support groups and dialysis (the highest rate in Canada) volunteer opportunities. While on and more than 160 awaiting transdialysis, I met many understanding plant, the need for the services propeople. They motivated me to get vided by the Kidney Foundation of out of the house at a crucial point in Canada’s Manitoba Branch has never my life. The KFOC later asked me to been greater. Your generous gift enbe a peer mentor to those recently sures that these valuable services can diagnosed and who were preparing be provided to people like me and my for dialysis and transplant. I grew as family. a person by helping many