“It all started in November 2021 when I became very ill; I thought I had a severe case of COVID-19, but my tests kept coming back negative. My symptoms lessened, and I figured I was through whatever it was. However, a month goes by and I got sick again. This time, weeks were going by and I was getting progressively worse.
I went to Urgent Care, and they prescribed me a steroid, which did not help. February 2022, the sickness was at the point that I could no longer ignore it. I felt like I was internally suffocating. Thinking that maybe whatever sickness it was turned into pneumonia, I went to the ER. Turns out I was in heart failure, both my lungs collapsed, my blood pressure was 216/142, and my oxygenation was at 40%. I was immediately admitted to the ICU. Nine days, and every test known to man later, I had a diagnosis: my kidneys were functioning at 7% caused by an autoimmune disease called iGA nephropathy.
Due to the amount of time that it took to go from normal kidney function to end stage kidney failure, they labeled it as rapidly progressive. This meant that I had to be put on emergency hemo dialysis to remove all the water and toxins that were causing my organs to shut down, and that I would ultimately need to have a kidney transplant.
Today I am thankfully stable due to my amazing team and dialysis, but still waiting on the kidney transplant!”
