Tag: Kidney Transplant

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Weight Loss Exercise

How to Stop Overwhelm and Get To Your Goals

Sometimes we want to act and we will take the long view and allow external issues to hold us back. I have been running into this lately and see it as something that use to stop me but now I try to compartmentalise stuff so that I can keep everything I can control on track.

The issue right now in our house is our upcoming Kidney March.

Kidney March History

A few months ago we signed up to do the Alberta Kideny March. This is a 100 kilometer walk that raises money and awareness for Kidney research for people like our daughter that face a kidney transplant.

When we signed up I was a bit slow getting started, it was a few months away, I knew that I had stuff coming up now, I had training walks to eventually do and fundraising. My wife on the other hand started fundraising and having success with it immediately and pulled me out the door for some training walks.

Now after a couple or three months of not doing anything about our Kideny March stuff my wife is suddenly nervous. We have to raise more money, what will we do with the kids that weekend?, my stomach problems are bad, we haven’t trained enough. All of these issues and even a couple more problems are in her way while my procrastination finally stopped and I have started doing longer training walks and know that I will definitely be ready for three days of 30+ kilometer walks.

With all of my wifes fears heading towards us I just want to walk and get ready. She isn’t there yet, but she is close

How to Handle Personal Projects

personal-planningWe had a long talk last night and there are a few things we can do. We can handle each of our outstanding issues separately and look at these as single issues, not all intertwined as one giant project.

I hope that now that my wife is onside with this that we can start moving forward but I have to admit that in this light I am looking pretty good which is not really fair. I am always the one turning everything into a ball of problems and not breaking things out and can never move forward until I untangle feelings, fears, problems, and possible solutions to try and fix everything.

I know I am not the only one that does this, it must be common but really so often we will feel the need to straighten everything out before we take action.

  • I can’t fix my diet until I go shopping again and finish the food in the house and find the perfect diet for me
  • I can’t get in shape until I join a gym and find a trainer and schedule to workout and the perfect workout routine
  • I can’t look for another job until I find my purpose and passions, and get training, and acceptable knowledge and build out my social network
  • I will not write a book until I have researched the subject thoroughly, found a writing coach and researched successful writers
  • I can’t, I need, I want, I have to get it together

Does this sound like you? I know it often sounds like me. I overanalyze most situations until I feel I am ready and so often we do not even foresee the actual problems that will come up in real life. Usually I make the issues that would come up as far more insurmountable then they really are.

Take First Actions

The real secret to success in most things is the first action. Once you take that action you can see what the next action should be and even if you have not prepared for what is coming up later you don’t have to have a fix until later anyway.

When I first looked at the Getting Things Done system I, like a lot of others, didn’t like the lack of planning for projects. When you look though now at what I am talking about with just worrying about the next step then it makes things work a lot better.

Do you do this as well? Not act until everything is ready?

Try doing this yourself, make a list of all the things that you need or want to get done and look at the first step. I can tell you that when you take that first step all the pressure feels like it is off. I have seen the September 6th date for the start of the Kidney March and just shook my head. Once I started my training in earnest though I now feel a heck of a lot better. I can now see what kind of training that I need to do so the pressure is off. I know that I can get these training sessions in so the pressure is off. I know for me the only other part is the fundraising and I can find the time for that so the pressure is off.

If we look back at the issues my wife is worries it is the same thing. Start fundraising again and ask for donations. Call some people to find a place for the kids for a couple days. Go to the doctor for some antibiotics for the stomach issues. And go for some training walks to see how close she is for being ready to walk. All have a next step.

I hope this post gets you mind churning a bit. I bet you, just like me, have a lot of outstanding things that you have been holding off on maybe for months or years that you can finally start and get on the road to finishing.

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Kidney March 2013


Kidney March 2013As many of you know my daughter Taylor has Kidney disease and it has been a bit of a struggle over the last year and a half since her initial diagnosis. We are of course coping and very thankful that we are living now, in a time when I can donate a kidney to my daughter as opposed to 50 years ago when this would have been impossible.

Even though we believe we have a way to help Taylor, many people are not nearly as fortunate as us. In Canada alone 100,000 people are waiting for a Kidney transplant and the line just gets bigger and bigger.

Often when faced with issues like this we can all feel powerless, not knowing what to do and how we can make a difference. But my wife and I have found a way and that is by taking part in Kidney March 2013.

What is the Kidney March?

During the weekend of September 6-8 Michelle and I will be taking part in the annual Kidney March. The Kidney March is a 100 kilometer walk over three days where we get an opportunity to do a couple of things.

First we get to raise money for a cause that is near and dear to our family and that is Kidney research, of all the major diseases that researchers are trying to cure, Kidney Disease is one with the best chance of being cured in the next few years.

Secondly we will be raising awareness of Kidney Disease. Thousands, actually millions of people suffer from Kidney disease but sadly most people don’t realize it until it is too late and they need to go on dialysis as this is a very silent disease with almost no symptoms until it is too late.

How Can You Help?

Kidney March 2013

Kidney March 2013

I have never been any kind of fundraiser in the past but I am super passionate about raising the money and awareness for Kidney Disease and this is a passion that I hope you will help me to share.

I am asking for two things. Please please please donate anything that you can. Be it $5 or $500 any amount will add up to make a huge difference, also I ask that you share this message with your friends and coworkers. If nothing else they can get a simple blood test, a creatinine test that can show if there is a heavy load on the Kidneys and how well they are working.

Thanks so much. You can visit my information page for the Kidney March now and if you have any questions or comments please let me know in the comments below.

Thanks, Bill.

Kidney March 2013, 5.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating

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My Daughters Kidney Disease


You may have noticed that I have not been as active this year as I usually am on the blog and there is one pretty big reason. My daughter is sick with Chronic Kidney Disease and I think I am finally ready to write about it, come out and talk about it. This is the first time that I am writing about my daughter and her Kidney disease and what is going on within our family as we struggle and work through this.

Early last year my daughter Taylor, who is now twelve, went for a normal annual physical and her blood testing came back with higher than normal levels of Creatinine. This was not too much of a worry to our family doctor as she was just slightly out of range but he still sent my wife and daughter to a pediatrician and some more testing. While time went by and we waited for the appointment a few weeks later I did a little Googling around and found that this could be a sign of some kind of kidney issue but it was really vague to us at the time.

My wife and daughter went to the pediatrician a couple of times and then got sent to a specialist and then finally to our children’s hospital for more testing and everyone was very indecisive about what was happening.

Getting the Diagnosis

Finally at one meeting last November that just Taylor and my wife Michelle went and had more testing and the doctor let them know that Taylor has Nephronophthisis and would have her kidneys fail and need to have a kidney transplant. Not good news and I still feel bad that I was not at the doctors appointment.

Nephronophthisis is a genetic condition so Michelle and I are both carriers of a bad gene and because of this there was a 1 in 4 chance that either of our kids would inherit the two bad gene halves. Taylor did, we think Jaiden or son did not. This form of kidney disease affects kids between the ages of 8 and 14 and the odds are really low, about 2 kids out of 100,000 would get this, and of course you don’t catch it, you are born with it and it just shows as you get older.

How Our Family is Dealing with Kidney Disease

Happy TaylorSo since last November we have been learning a lot and had a lot of hard times with Taylor’s kidney disease. Taylor is a bit scared of course like any 12 year old should be. My wife Michelle is always looking far ahead and nervous about what the future holds, and I am day to day. Every day that Taylor feels well I am happy and every day that she is feeling unwell I feel terrible for her.

So far since the Nephronophthisis diagnosis Taylor’s kidney function has dropped from about 45% to 28.6% and as we watch the kidney function drop we get more and more nervous but the doctors stay level headed and are keeping us informed on the next steps for us and Taylor and meeting with us on a monthly basis. Here in Calgary Alberta we have a Nepherology clinic at the Alberta Children’s Hospital and so each monthly meeting there we meet with a psychologist, a dietician, a pharmacist, and the kidney doctor. They are fantastic and I feel like we are in great hands.

So far we have not had to change Taylor’s diet at all (no sodium restriction), and she has to take a few vitamins and on Sunday nights she get the good fortune of having me give her an Eprex shot. Also Taylor has to drink a ton of water as her kidneys do not keep her water level where it needs to be and she dehydrates easily, so easily in fact that we have had to take her to hospital three times in the last few months for dehydration.

Next Step – Kidney Transplant

So now we are getting close to our next step. Taylor will need a new kidney sooner rather than later. As the kidney function drops Taylor’s kidneys will not clean blood, regulate vitamin D or calcium very well until finally none of this would happen and she would need to go on dialysis. So the first step was for my wife and I to get ready tested as transplant donors. We went for blood testing and the living donor clinic (independent or our doctor or us) have decided to start testing me to donate a kidney. I have a 24 hour heart rate monitor on right now as I type and then there will be a full day of testing in a few weeks to test me and see if I am a good match.

As for kidney transplant itself, a transplanted kidney will last for 10 to 15 years and then Taylor will be shopping for another one. The surgery seems to be common and the doctor that we spoke to earlier this week say that they do about 50 kidney transplants every year with only about 5 being done for kids. If all goes according to plan I will donate the kidney, Taylor will get the kidney put into her body and hooked up, and we will be out of the hospital within a few days. People live completely normal lives with just one kidney and the only suggestion that our transplant doctor gave me was to not eat protein powder because of the pressure it puts on the kidney. Diet and exercise should be the same.

So as you can imagine this as been a really trying time for our whole family. We are worried for Taylor and hoping that everything is done before she would have to go on dialysis but for now we are day to day with this thing struggling, praying, hoping, and just living through it.

I know that I may have missed a lot in this post, in fact I expect to write a few posts on the subject as we are becoming pretty well versed in kidney issues and health of kidneys. Fire away any questions that you want and Michelle and I will answer them for you.

My Daughters Kidney Disease, 5.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating

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