A Northern Ireland mum with end stage kidney failure says she wants to be around to see her daughter grow up.
Amy Mackay, 22 and from Carrickfergus, says her life has changed a lot in a short space of time. Mum to 3-year-old Zaria, she was diagnosed with stage 5 kidney disease last September, meaning her kidneys are close to or have completely failed.
Stage 5 kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), is a severe stage of chronic kidney disease (CKD) where the kidneys are no longer able to filter waste from the blood. Amy went straight onto dialysis a couple days later and is now in need of a kidney transplant that will allow her more time with her young daughter.
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After Zaria was born in December 2021, Amy began to experience migraines, which she put down to suffering from preeclampsia during her pregnancy.
She told Belfast Live: "When I finally got the diagnosis it was a huge shock. I have only been on dialysis for five months but to me it already feels like years.. This time away is something I can't explain to my 3-year-old so she didn't get why I was gone.
"Currently when I leave for my hospital dialysis, which is three times a week, my daughter gets upset and clings to me as she just doesn't understand where I'm going and if I will be gone for as long as I was when I got the diagnosis in hospital. She will cry and get frustrated and upset for whoever in the family is minding her and this means it is hard to settle her as she just wants me and thinks I've abandoned her."
Now all Amy wants is to celebrate Zaria's future milestones knowing that she has the burden of dialysis gone.
"The sickness and tiredness is hard on us as a family, which means I'm not up for doing the fun things I used to want to do. Nursery for Zaria starts in September and I want to be able to take her there and pick her up but dialysis will not let me do that, which means I'll be absent in the school year.
"I know there's people out there a lot worse off than me but I just want to see my daughter achieve things and grow up. Waiting for a deceased donor kidney has a wait time of two and a half to three years which means I would miss all of her time in nursery and worst case scenario I would miss her going into P1 and P2 also."
Amy can receive a kidney transplant from any adult who is a match for her and urging people who haven't already done so to consider becoming an organ donor.
She said: "A live donor would be a smaller time frame after all the testing etc but it's still a lot faster than two years. You can live a perfectly healthy life with one kidney. My own father would love to give me one but he's already donated one of his as an organ donor. Getting a kidney would mean people like me getting off dialysis faster and being able to enjoy precious moments with my little girl."
For more information, visit the Kidney Care UK website through this link. Find out more about Organ Donation NI here.
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