Nick's Story

I am 18 years old.
I’m starting college.
I’m on scholarship.
I’ve met a pretty girl.
And I’m captain of the downhill ski team.

But a routine checkup alerts my ski coach and my doctor. There’s something wrong with my kidney. Suddenly a new and unfamiliar doctor enters my life: a nephrologist.

I’m 18 years old. And I’m told I have kidney disease. Even worse? A biopsy reveals I was born not with two but only one (not so great) kidney. I undergo an invasive and truly terrible operation, cutting through my back, bone and ski-team dreams.

Was this Groundhog Day? I had been born blind. Endured six eye operations by the time I was in kindergarten. And now this? A chronic disease, more surgeries, and a lifetime on medication and dialysis?

I remember being wheeled into the hospital while my dad was getting pushed out of the hospital. Dad was finishing up his prostrate cancer treatment. And there’s me, his 18-year-old son, sick but still fighting. Again.

Looking back, I am amazed at what my parents and I went through. As a family there were years dominated by pain, anger and frustration. But there was also so much hope, strength and determination in our house and at the hospital.

Kidney disease taught me at a young age that part of growing up is giving hope and strength to other people. Despite my situation my family encouraged me to continue my community volunteer work. Helping others helped me shine a light into darkness while illuminating my own path forward.

For almost six years, from the time I was 18 to 23 years old, I faced changes; none of them good. I needed to change my diet completely from eating anything I wanted to tiny servings of what my teenage self termed “rabbit food” – lettuce and other disgusting vegetables. There were the medications, which sometimes left me knocked out like prize fighter with a glass jaw.

Meanwhile, my one-and-only kidney continued to fail.

When I started dialysis, which is always a sad and terrifying day, the people I met transformed my feelings of helplessness and self-pity.

Doctors treated me with compassion and respect while reassuring me that I could still build a good life even within the restrictions of dialysis. Nurses and support staff regularly encouraged me not to give up despite the setbacks and hardships.

The patients showed me how they were building and enjoying full lives that included dialysis. I was told what to expect once I (finally or maybe “if”) received a kidney transplant. It was my fellow dialysis people who, through their strength of character, taught me that you can still have a good life even if that life is not going according to plan.

For six months and 11 days in that Dialysis Unit I asked one question constantly: would I ever receive a new kidney? Each of us kidney patients wanted freedom from that sterile ward and those life-giving machines.

Happily, life changed for me. On the Summer Solstice, I received the news that a kidney transplant was waiting for me. I was 24 years old. And I’d been waiting for that call for over five years.

I wasn’t the only one excited about the news. The transplant team had called my family, friends and office. As I was driven to the hospital, it felt like all the world knew I was receiving a Gift of Life. There was actually a convoy of about 30 cars trailing after me, honking their horns and waving at me.

Although 31 years have passed since I woke up in that Recovery Room with a new kidney, I can still easily recall my mother’s worried face looming over me. Mom looked so desperate for a sign of good news. That good news came in the form of my new kidney hungrily devouring the nitrogen waste in my blood. In other words, my new kidney was doing exactly what a healthy kidney should.

I was home three days later, blessed with a new lease on life. Freedom from dialysis. Freedom to follow my dreams. Freedom to ski again.

Let me leave you with this, especially if you’ve recently been diagnosed with kidney disease.

If you are out there and you feel like your life’s dreams have been stolen from you, I get it. If I could talk to that 18-year-old kid I once was, I’d say, “Nick, you’ve overcome challenges before. You were blind and now you can see. Do not let kidney disease darken your light and defeat you.”

And to you, if you’re suffering physically, emotionally and spiritually? Maybe you feel like you’ve lost it all, like I did so many years ago. For you, I offer you this piece of encouragement and advice from AC/DC: It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll.

Just keep going.

I am now 55 years old.
I'm retired.
I’m a lifelong learner, who deserves a scholarship in my opinion!
I married the bravest and prettiest girl in Ottawa.
And you can find me on the ski hill, smiling, every winter.

There is such gratitude and such joy in my life. I am healthy enough to build a life with the love of my life. My best friend. To this day I still feel my parents’ pride in my accomplishments; in how life turned out for me despite the odds.

Yes, kidney disease slowed me down, but kidney disease never stopped me. I met many moguls as I skied down the hill of life, but those moguls could not throw me.