TOW & PKD

During the months June, July and August I went surfing 2 times. Not a lot of TOW (Time on Water) that is. I often lack the energy to go windsurfing because off my PKD (Polycystic kidney disease).
I was diagnosed to have this disease about 10 years ago. I now have a kidney function less than 10% and I have to take a lot off medication to reduce side effects. Medication such as blood pressure control, hard rhythm control, calium reduction, osteoporosis medication, arthritis medication, veins medication, …

Currently there is no cure for this illness. The only thing that can be done is to get another kidney. There is also a machine that can filter your blood but it is inefficient and it takes 3 half days per week to filter the blood.
There are 2 possibilities to get a new kidney: From a dead donor or from a living donor.

My blood type is O+. That means that are a lot of other people on the waiting list to get a kidney from a dead donor. I would take about 4 years from the moment that you are on the list for transplantation.The other solution is to get a kidney from a living donor. But then you first have to find someone who is willing to donate you one of his/her kidneys and the kidney has to match your blood/tissue.

I got a lot of luck here. My wife wants to donate her kidney and the blood/tissue matches.

Somewhere in the autumn I will get 2 operations. First they are going to remove my 2 kidneys and then about 6 weeks later me and my wife will be lying in 2 different surgeries at the same time. One team will remove one kidney from my wife and put it in me minutes later.

I hope that all this will work fine and I hope that my lovely wife will not suffer too much and will be recovering quickly.

I hope be windsurfing again (at full force) by the summer of 2011.