Ellie O’Brien never saw it coming. An active sixteen-year-old who enjoyed dance lessons and swimming, she enjoyed the good health we all naturally associate with the young and young at heart. “I was never really sick,” she says. That all changed eighteen months ago, when Ellie suddenly began to feel inexplicably ill. “I was short of breath a lot, and whenever I had to walk any distance, I felt nauseated.” Initially treated for bronchitis, Ellie’s condition continued to deteriorate until she ended up in hospital with a shocking diagnosis following a round of tests – Ellie’s kidneys were revealed to be both scarred and extremely small and she was in need of transplantation. The cause of her kidney damage remains a mystery, but the effects were devastating. “When I was first told of the diagnosis,” says Ellie, “it was like everything suddenly stopped and I was looking at life through a long, dark tunnel.”
Fourteen months of kidney dialysis treatments ensued – three times a week, several hours each time – and a bevy of restrictions that included not being able to immerse dialysis tubing critical to the process. “I couldn’t get it wet. That meant no swimming,” Ellie says, “and no showering, either.” Dance lessons came to a halt, and Ellie’s life began to revolve around her life-saving dialysis sessions. Through it all, she managed to keep up her studies at school. A search for a suitable kidney donor began in earnest, and as luck would have it, a friend of her mother’s stepped forward as a viable match. Ellie received a kidney from Margaret Coady in late July.
Equipped with her new kidney, life is looking up for Ellie O’Brien. “I suddenly have great hope for the future,” she says. “It’s so much easier to deal with something when you see the solution in sight.” As she left the QEII Health Sciences Centre, she looked forward to a hot shower and a swim – two things many of us take for granted – and resuming her dance classes. Best of all, her experience has provided her with a desire to help others. Her plans now include a career in nursing.
