By writer to dailyhive.com
A Vancouver mom of two is trying to find an organ donor after going into acute kidney failure on Christmas Eve.
Interior designer Alexis MacKay-Dunn was first identified with IgA Nephropathy, a power kidney illness, in 2018 whereas pregnant together with her first baby.
“My kidneys have been found to be silently deteriorating and scarring themselves for some undetermined time with out me displaying any signs,” she mentioned.
Regardless of the prognosis, her kidneys carried out nicely all through her first being pregnant. In early 2020, MacKay-Dunn was given a small window to have one other baby earlier than her illness progressed additional.
A troublesome a part of the situation, she mentioned, is that there isn’t any clear timeline for the way lengthy it should take the kidneys to say no.
Alexis MacKay-Dunn
MacKay-Dunn’s second being pregnant was nothing like the primary.
“Regardless of collective finest efforts and the perfect medical consideration one may ever hope for, my kidneys struggled and I began experiencing extreme complications, hypertension, and debilitating exhaustion,” she mentioned.
To guard her kidneys whereas additionally permitting her child to outlive, MacKay-Dunn’s daughter was born early, on December 16. MacKay-Dunn initially recovered nicely from the deliberate 32-week supply.
However every week later, her signs obtained worse and her kidneys went into acute failure. On December 24, she was admitted to the Kidney Clinic at St. Paul’s Hospital.
Whereas MacKay-Dunn was being stabilized at St. Paul’s, her untimely child was within the NICU at BC Ladies’s Hospital.
Alexis MacKay-Dunn
Though mother and child have each been capable of go dwelling, the truth of MacKay-Dunn’s waning well being is setting in.
She presently has lower than 10% kidney perform, and it’s declining nonetheless. The lower in her vitality ranges has been “startling,” and she or he has periodic complications and swelling.
With two kids underneath the age of three, MacKay-Dunn must be cautious about how a lot exercise she will get in a day or she’ll “hit the wall of maximum exhaustion.”
Dialysis has offered a short lived resolution, however the one hope of restoring her high quality of life long-term is a brand new kidney.
On the recommendation of her medical doctors, MacKay-Dunn is casting a large internet in her search for a possible donor. Discovering a dwelling donor might be troublesome, and she or he doesn’t have a very giant household to display screen from.
“A brand new kidney would basically give me my life again,” she mentioned. “It will permit me to do all of the issues an in any other case younger and wholesome mother does to help her rising household, like giving my kids the love and vitality they want from their mother.”
“It will additionally relieve the stress of the potential that my household may finally lose me if I don’t discover a donor match.”
You don’t should have the identical blood time or be beneath a sure age to donate a kidney. The method is nameless, and donors can reside a wholesome, regular life after the process.
“The Kidney Clinic at St. Paul’s at all times says folks ought to by no means rely themselves out,” MacKay-Dunn mentioned, noting the workforce’s compassion and professionalism.
In case you are enthusiastic about turning into Alexis MacKay-Dunn’s kidney donor please attain out to the St. Paul’s Hospital Residing Kidney Donor Program and point out her title.
They are often reached at 604-806-9027 or 1-877-922-9822, or through electronic mail at [email protected]
— to dailyhive.com
