Dawn Gignac
My name is Dawn Gignac and I recently found out that I have PKD. My brother had it and it came from our dad. My two nieces have it and two of their children also have it. I was so...
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Maggie Sessler
My name is Maggie Sessler and my husband, Mike, and I have been together for 21 years. Mike was diagnosed with PKD at the age of 25. His dad, Keith, passed away in 2007 from a stroke awaiting his second...
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Karen Dellinger
My name is Karen Dellinger and my father had PKD. So we, his children, decided to be tested to possibly give him a kidney. It was then we found that my older sister had the same disease, as it's hereditary....
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Robert Attebery
My name is Robert Attebery and I’m a 60-year-old enrolled member of the Karuk tribe in Northern California. I was diagnosed with PKD a few years back. My mother died at 75 of a burst aneurysm from complications of PKD....
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Brian Buenaventura
I’ve been struggling with this disease for 10 years already after being diagnosed in early 2012. I continued my life, but in 2018 my labs hit high so I started dieting extremely and exercise regularly. It’s really hard to beat...
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Jane Brann
My name is Jane. My father, whose PKD was a “mutation,” died at the age of 35, before either dialysis or transplants were developed. I was diagnosed with PKD at the age of 22. I closely watched my diet and...
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Caryn Becker
My name is Caryn Becker and when I was a teenager, I found out my dad had ADPKD. He let his kidney function drop until his creatinine was 14! He was very sick and eventually went on dialysis. My dad...
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Patricia Mittlestadt
My name is Patricia Mittlestadt and I am 65 years young and on the kidney transplant waiting list. My dream is to receive a kidney before I go on dialysis, which is around the corner. I keep going from stage...
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Michelle Leigh Watson
My name is Michelle Leigh Watson, and I was diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease at 33. My father died from PKD at the age of 47. His mother, two of his sisters, and three of my cousins have died from...
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Greg Zollner
My name is Greg Zollner and I was a nephrologist for 25 years. Twenty years ago, I diagnosed myself with polycystic kidney disease, during a routine demonstration of an ultrasound machine. I'm aware of the irony of a kidney doctor...
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Heidi Hammond
My name is Heidi and I found out that I had PKD at the age of 18 when I had appendicitis—only months after my dad discovered he had PKD and received a kidney transplant. He was the "mutant" and the...
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Vanessa Nieves
My name is Vanessa, and I’m 32 years old. I come from a long line of PKD survivors. My maternal grandfather was on dialysis for several years before passing away in the '70s. At the time, they didn’t know it...
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