by admin | Jun 4, 2019 | ADPKD, Living with PKD
I was diagnosed with ADPKD at 15 years old following a snowmobiling accident that caused me to rupture a cyst. I am currently 31 years old, working as a firefighter/EMT and going to nursing school while working hard to raise my 10-year-old son. My family has an...
by PKD Foundation Staff | Dec 17, 2018 | ADPKD, Living with PKD
PKD has caused my family so much hardship. Growing up, I watched my mother suffer as her health declined. She was always in so much pain, never wanting to leave the house because she was so uncomfortable. Finally, at age 41 she was put on dialysis, and she was...
by PKD Foundation Staff | Dec 17, 2018 | ADPKD, Dialysis, Living with PKD, Transplantation
PKD runs in my family. My grandmother ultimately passed as a result of complications with the disease. My mother was diagnosed but it was very well managed until 2006. Within 6 months her kidney function dropped to under 10%. Her best friend Carolyn offered to donate...
by PKD Foundation Staff | Dec 17, 2018 | ARPKD, Caregivers, PKD Parents, PKD Youth
My name is Kristen Simms. I am a 26-year-old military wife living in Northern Virginia with two children affected by ARPKD: a four-year-old boy, Elijah and a one-year-old girl, Presley. With our firstborn son, Eli, we had no idea that he had PKD. It was found after...
by admin | Dec 13, 2018 | ADPKD, Living with PKD
My paternal grandmother, Helen, is the first that we know of who had autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) in the family. We only figured it out when others in the family started to get diagnosed and we realized that it must have been the cause of her...
