This article is from page 8 of the 2014-04-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
SARAH Keogh knows better than most the huge impact an organ donation can have on a life.
The young West Clare woman has been through a rollercoaster of emotions and experience since she was diagnosed with renal failure at just 12 years old. Since then she has received a kidney transplant, went into rejection after a few years and is back on dialysis and the transplant list again.
“What I can describe it as, you know the way you grieve for someone. When I heard the news that it had gone into rejection it was like you had nearly lost someone,” said Sarah.
For the years the kidney worked however, the now 22-year-old knew what is was like to be free of dialysis, be able to eat and drink with freedom, have energy to keep up with her friends and have her medication cut from 30 tablets a day to just five.
For the first year after her diagnosis medical professions tried to control her condition with a strict diet and medication, however when she was just 13 years old it became apparent she would have to begin home dialysis and begin the wait for a kidney.
“When I was younger I don’t think I grasped the whole concept of it really I just took it as it was but I understand it more now that I am older – the seriousness of it,” she said.
Then when she was 15 years old she received her first kidney transplant, which changed her life. After four years however, for no apparent reason, the kidney was rejected.
“When I was first in kidney failure I still had a urine output, whereas a lot of people in kidney failure don’t have that. I had the function where my kidneys would get rid of the fluid I was taking in, but it wasn’t clearing my blood. I had a looser diet and I wasn’t on fluid restitution, where as this time around I have no urine output so I am on a fluid restriction of 800 mls to a litre a day, which I find really, really hard. I am on a lot stricter diet because I don’t have any kidney function now,” she explained.
Sarah has also opted for home dialysis, which means she has access to the treatment 24 hours a day.
The Limerick Institute of Technology student uses portable bags for her dialysis. She must drain and replace fluid four times a day, a process that takes between half and hour and 40 minutes.
“If I go away for a day, say I go to Dublin on the train, then I do have to bring those bags with me, so usually I am carrying a bag with four bags in it depending on how much I have to do for the day I am gone,” she said.
Despite some of the setbacks and challenges life has put in her way, the Tullycrine student has a positive outlook for the future.
As she approaches her 23rd birthday, she is determined to live a full independent life irrespective of the constraints imposed on her by dialy- sis, food and liquid restrictions and low energy.
“With the home [dialysis] I have so much more freedom. I am in college, I can go on holidays, I hang out with my friends. I can bring it with me. Whereas Heamo you are that bit more restricted. Three days out of your week is gone really because it drains you completely,” she said. More than 40 people in Clare are on Heamo dialysis. “I sleep a lot. I go for a nap during the day for maybe two or three hours. The diet and the fluid I find very hard as well, especially when you are with friends and they might buy a bottle of water and they are able to gulp it down, where as I have to measure everything I am taking in or at least try. And even food wise as well. I am not really allowed processed food. It is very high in salt and stuff,” explained Sarah.
The second year student has her bag packed and is ready for another call from the kidney transplant team, when another kidney match is found.
She said that people who sign donor cards give people like her a great chance at life, for which she is very grateful.
Sarah looks forward again to a day when her dialysis is gone, her medication is drastically reduced and she has the freedom of a regular diet.
“I have told my family if I do get a transplant I want them to come in with a cup the size of my head, so I can have a massive cup of tea,” she said with a good humoured laugh.