I was diagnosed as a child with a disease called bronchiectasis. This chronic disease eventually caused my AA amyloidosis which affected my kidneys and eventually led to kidney failure.
My kidneys had been failing for nearly 20 years so when in 2005 I was told I needed dialysis I thought I would take this all in my stride. How wrong I was as I suffered a huge grief reaction and felt I had failed in my life.
But dialysis was my only hope of living so I had to try and get over my feelings.
I had a fistula put in my arm in March 2005 and started treatment eight weeks later. From the beginning I had very supportive staff around me but I had lots of problems with my immature fistula vein and would only allow chosen nurses to put my needles in. This led to the suggestion, given in a caring but straight way, that if I was going to be choosy I should learn to needle myself!
This proved to be difficult as the neuropathy from my amyloidosis had affected the ends of my fingers made feeling for the vein very hard.