Week Zero

Christmas is over, 2017 beckons, and my training commences next week.  For the next 16 weeks I will be running in excess of ten hours each week - yikes.

I have found a suitable training plan which is printed out on my wall.  Take a look if you like... it's a little bit insane.  I'm cutting it down slightly - I will do two midweek runs, each 6-10 miles, then whatever it says for the weekend.  I will be running every Saturday and Sunday for the first third of the year.

As I write this, I'm in bed with flu.  Not the most auspicious start!  But I'm very excited to get cracking.  I'm spending the day sending emails in the hope of getting fundraising off to a great start!

If you would like to sponsor me, here's the link: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/marathonmadness 
Thank you so much xx

Fundraising

Lately I have been mega busy with my degree, but in the back of my mind I know I need to crack on with my fundraising.  That £1500 isn't going to raise itself and there's a danger I will lose the place in January if I don't make progress towards raising the required funds.

I have set up a fundraising page here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/marathonmadness 
If you know me, and even if you don't, please give as much as you can to this excellent cause.  I've seen first-hand how debilitating dialysis can be for patients and the support of organisations like GSTT Kidney Patients' Association makes a big difference.

I've started thinking of fundraising activities but am slightly scared by the fact I'm on clinical placement from 3 January to 7 April and am not allowed to take a single day off.  I'm not really quite sure how I'm going to do it.  I hate asking people for money.

Never before have I done a sponsored running event.  I run because I love it, and I feel asking people to sponsor me to do something I love is a bit of a cop-out really.  This is different though:

1. This is NOT going to be a fun running event, this is going to be torture
2. It's my last marathon before I donate one of my kidneys... will there ever be a better reason?
3. It is for a genuinely important and life-changing cause
4. I have not asked anyone to donate to anything on my behalf since my parachute jump in 2012 
5. 2017 is my final year in London and running the marathon this year seems fitting, it feels like saying goodbye and thank you to everyone who has supported me through my degree
6. I promise I will not ask for anyone to sponsor me for anything for at least another decade

Let the marathons commence

In 2016, like thousands of others, I failed to get a London marathon place in the ballot.   I re-entered the ballot for 2017 full of optimism that this would be my year. 

Unfortunately, I was rejected again.... but just like last year, I couldn't get the idea out of my head.  Last year, my London rejection led me to sign up for the Paris marathon, but this year I wanted to do something special.  I knew it would be my last chance for a marathon before my kidney donation, and having run four marathons this year I wanted to do something bigger and better!

I came up with the plan of running the London marathon twice.  I would run it backwards, at 3am, from the finish line to the start, with the same group of people I did it with in 2016.  Then I would apply for a charity place, and run it forwards as well.  On the same day.  Sounds like a great plan, eh? 

I looked into getting a charity place and discovered I could run for Guy's and St Thomas' Kidney Patients' Association.  This is a perfect fit as that's where I'm donating my kidney and their purpose is to support kidney patients and their families and kidney research.  They had a fundraising target of £1500, which whilst daunting, is far less than some of the bigger charities ask you to raise.

So far all seems good.  But just in case, I figured I'd better apply for a place in the Brighton marathon as well, two weeks prior.  London marathon charity places are not always that easy to come by and small charities only have a few places to offer - perhaps somebody better would come along.  I applied and waited.

Today I found out that I'd got my place in the Brighton marathon.
Two hours later, I found out that I'd got my place in the London marathon too.
Plus the backwards one... that makes three marathons in two weeks.  Eeek!

I've changed the name of my blog to reflect this.... come back to read about my training progress and also how things are going with my kidney donation work-up...

Update

After my last post, I did lots of thinking. I found out about Give A Kidney, a charity promoting living kidney donation. Their AGM was at the end of January, so I went along to meet some living donors and ask their advice. It was brilliant but the advice regarding squeezing my donation into a four-week window was largely, “You might be fine but there’s no guarantee”. I had several email conversations with people I’d met there afterwards. I spoke to my university tutor.

In the end, I decided the risk was too great. I spoke to the transplant coordinator and informed her I’d decided to wait until summer 2017, after I’ve completed my degree. We agreed to meet again in September.

September has finally rolled around. I slept for a week because clinical placement was exhausting. I realised with hindsight this would NOT have been a good time for an op. I went back to meet the transplant coordinator again. This time, it was all good. She was happy that I’d had longer to think about it and was still fervently keen. I was happy because waiting until summer 2017 meant I could take part in pooled donation. Pooled donation is quite new and is an amazing idea: some of the people on the waiting list have a friend/family member who are willing to donate to them but aren’t a match. I come along, give them my kidney, then their friend/family member gives theirs to someone else on the waiting list, then THEIR friend/family member gives theirs to someone else on the waiting list (who doesn’t need a donor). Thereby my kidney enables THREE people to get kidneys rather than just one — even better! However, you can only take part if you join a matching run, i.e. do it at a specific time of year, to fit in with the surgeons/other people/etc. Here’s a diagram:

Image courtesy of Give A Kidney

I had a bunch of blood tests, was weighed and measured, had my blood pressure taken and that was it. Two weeks later I got a call saying I had passed the initial tests and needed to arrange my medical assessment day and appointment with the consultant nephrologist.

These have been booked for January so there will be more news then!

The beginning

A couple of months ago, I heard about altruistic kidney donation in a lecture. I’d never heard of it before - in fact it had never really occurred to me that you could donate anything other than blood while you were still alive. As I read more about it, I found myself entranced by the idea.

We all have two kidneys, but we only need one. There are 5,500 people in the UK waiting for a kidney. 300 people a year die because they don’t get one in time. While patients are waiting, they often have to be on dialysis, which costs the NHS £20,000 per year and has a massive impact on quality of life. Kidney donors actually live longer than the general population because they are thoroughly screened before they are allowed to donate.

I can’t think of any reason not to donate a kidney. I have a spare one that I don’t even need. I could give it to someone and it would be life-changing for them, and it’d save the NHS the equivalent of a healthcare assistant’s salary every year because they wouldn’t have to pay the cost of dialysis.

Time went by. I thought about it some more and did some googling. Then I rang the kidney unit at my local hospital and had a telephone screening. Then I filled in a referral form. Then I made an appointment with the consultant nurse. Yesterday I met the consultant nurse.

Since then I have thought about it a lot. The big issue for me is that recovery from the operation takes 4–8 weeks. I have only one possible gap between now and the end of my degree in June 2017 in which I could have the operation. It is in August this year, squeezed in between my clinical placement and the start of my fourth year. My gap is four weeks long. Straight after this, I begin my dissertation.

So here come the what if’s. What if I don’t recover quickly enough? What if I’m tempted to overdo it? What if I can’t work as hard as usual because I’m still getting over major surgery? What if the university force me to delay my degree for a year? What if the kidney transplant team refuse to let me do it because they think I’m a reckless fool?

The alternative is to wait until after my degree is finished and do it then. This is what a sensible person would do. I don’t want to. Patience isn’t my strong point.

I want to give my kidney away NOW, as soon as possible! But everyone I know tells me this is completely mad. But to me, there’s no reason not to. I’m healthy, fit, have good kidney function, and can do something positive. Why wouldn’t I?