By Betsy Calloway

My journey started when I was 21 years old. I was a freshman at a small college in Norfolk, Va. While in school, I became extremely ill and was hospitalized for five days in the intensive care unit (ICU). After my hospitalization, I completed the rest of my semester and then I reluctantly returned home to Maryland. Six months later in October 2001, I was hospitalized again and back in the ICU.

Unbeknownst to me, this would be the turning point of the rest of my life. My attending physician came into my hospital room early one morning and informed me I had evidence of kidney disease. In fact, further tests would reveal my kidney function was only about 40 percent. I was diagnosed with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), which is a progressive kidney disease that will eventually lead to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). I was devastated, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I didn’t believe it was happening to me. I was angry. I remember thinking to myself, I’m only 21…21, how could this be?

However, after every storm there is a rainbow. God was with me always and he blessed me with a guardian angel - my sister. My family was with me every step of the way and my sister would be the one that would save my life.

The first two years of my treatment were the hardest. We attacked the kidney disease full force. Due to illness, I had to drop out of college and go on disability from my job. I felt like my life came to a screeching halt. And kidney disease was not the only battle that I was fighting at the time. I was severely obese. At my peak, I weighed 348lbs. My nephrologists suggested I look into getting the gastric bypass surgery. In the summer of 2002 and at the young age of 22, I was embarking on another extreme transformation, I under went gastric bypass surgery. By the end of 2005, I had lost a total of 160 lbs. Currently, I am still in great shape and I have kept the weight off. Having the surgery was one of the best decisions of my life and it quite possibly helped save my life.

By the fall of 2003, my nephrologist released me to go back to work and school. I soon found a great job as an office manager and in the spring of 2005, I resumed classes at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). I felt like I was on top of the world. I was balancing working full-time, going to school full-time, all while managing my chronic illness which was getting progressively worse through the years. In fact, I had a significant drop in kidney function during the summer of 2005 and I was advised to begin the kidney transplant process. However, I pressed on. I kept my eye on my goal of graduating college. I also began an internship with a non-profit organization in Baltimore working with children with disabilities and even maintained a 3.25 cumulative grade point average.

I like to describe the year 2006 as the calm before the storm. In the spring of 2007, I started to become more ill and exhausted. Later that fall, I was hospitalized again, but this time the outcome would be drastically different than any other time. I was in complete renal failure and at 27 years old, I had to start hemodialysis. My biggest fear was now my reality. I felt like I was in a whirlwind, my world turned upside down yet again. What about school? What about my job? How will my life be now? These were the questions that were swimming in my head. I was in my senior year of school, the last semester before graduation. I could not give up now, no matter what. I decided to stay in school and go on disability from my job while on dialysis. I believed a positive attitude would take me further than I could ever imagine. My positive attitude and determination paid off because on December 20, 2007, I graduated from UMBC with a Bachelor of Art degree in Psychology.

Life kept getting better. My sister volunteered to donate a kidney to me. So only after two months of being on dialysis, on December 21, 2007, I received a new kidney from my sister. My sister gave me the greatest gift - she gave me the gift of life and unconditional love.

I am an example of what one person can accomplish through hard work, determination, a positive spirit, and allowing others to support and love you. I believe that you should not let a disease define who you are or dictate your life for you. You have to keep living; you have to keep pushing on. I experienced and lived through the whole cycle of kidney disease. My journey continues and the future looks good!

To order posters of the AAKP Says I Can! winners call 800-749-AAKP or you can download posters from the AAKP Web site by visiting www.aakp.org/events/I-Can/. AAKP conducted a nationwide search for the 2008 AAKP Says I Can! campaign. A multitude of diverse entries were received and their stories are also featured on the AAKP Web site at www.aakp.org/events/I-Can/ experience-new-entries.

This article originally appeared in the September 2008 issue of aakpRENALIFE.

Back