when it all started

hello everyone, well where do i start, i thought i would do a blog for you all to read, hope you find it intresting, if you dont thanks for looking anyway.i thought i would let everyone know what it is really like to have to live with an illness that can turn your world upside down, renal(kidney failure) before i came across it i knew no different, and if someone could have warned me of the ups and downs and stresses then i may have been prepared even better, and some people may moan"its not even you that is ill" as it isnt its my boyfriend of 5 years, and whilst i appreciate that he is the one feeling ill, having operations, medication etc, it still affects me emotionally and mentally ina big way, but some people dont look at that and only notice the patient. well where do i start? me and my boyf have been together for ages and ages, not long after getting together i learnt that when he was 17 he had recieved a kidney transplant, i have to say i found that amazing and thought he was very brave, and if it wasnt for his scars i would never have known any differnet he did everything everyone else did, and life was fantastic( it still is its just that we have more stress to put up with now) then a couple of years ago darren started to be unwell, he was sick near enough if not every day, it scared me at first to see him like this, but it was something we were to get use to, we had bought a house together and the day we moved in i remember having both sets of parents helping us out and towards the end of the day he felt uwell, that night he was sick again and ther was blood in it, he said he would be ok, then that night he couldnt stop being sick, he could hardly stand and was lay on the bathroom floor telling me to call an ambulance, i was so scared, obviously my prtner was too, after time and tests at the hospital we were told his kidneys were not working as well as they had been, we knew this would eventually happen, over the coming months he had various testa and was told he had ulcers, due to the many tablets he had to take, which he couldnt suddenly stop taking, they kept him alive after all, so instead he was given some further medication to try and help the ulcers, he felt well for a while, but he wasnt as he use to be, he was tired very very quickly, and we had appointment at the transplant clinic and were told that he would soon be needing another transplant, the news came as a blow and he was upset but realised it was for the best, they said it maybe upto 2 years away, and then he would go on dialysis and wait on the transplant list for a donor, from this point he was ill regurlarly, that christmas was quite nice(2005) and we brought in the new year of 2006 on a happy note, darren started to feel unwell again, and was very tired, couldnt do much, was sick all the time, and 2006 turned out not to be a good year, in the january our cat was run over and killed, in the february our family dog died, then in march my grandma died my grandma it was a horrible horrible time, my grandma was adnmitted to hospital in the february, after a fall at home, we didnt dream for one minute that she would never come home, she was left on a ward that didnt deal with what was wrong with her, they did numerous testa and told us at the beginning of march that she actually had cancer, in quite a few places and all they could do was make her comfortable, and that following week she died, it was horrible. i was in work on a monday and my mum rang me from the hospital to say that they didnt think she would make it through the day and we could be with her if we wanted, i felt so guilty having to go to my boss to ask him if i could go, i had had so much time off with my partner being ill, he was understanding and said if i had to go then go, so i rang my partner, we mad the 1 hour drive to the hospital and was taken into a room where my grandma was, they had given her her own space now, she seemed in pain even though she was asleep, they gave her morphine to help, and she then looked more peaceful, we sat there all day, and a female chaplin came in to say a few words, as my grandma was a regular church goer, and we knew she would like that, my grandad(her husband) had died when my mum was just 14 so i never did meet him, but the chaplin said she would soon be joining him and she would be happy again, as she had never ever been involved with another man since he died. she also had 2 daughters that had died before her, bith had commit suicide, one when i was 2-3 years old, so i dont remember, one was just in feb 2004, and it hit my grandma hard, some of the family decided to keep it from her, then she came to visit me in my new house and she asked me the question, i couldnt lie, me and my grandma had a very close bond, so i sat with her and explained what i could, my grandma blamed herself and said"i couldnt be a very good mum if 2 of my daughters have commited suicide", none of it was ever her fault, they were both for completly different reasons and i do hope they are now at peace, i believe that my grandma never really got over that and was never the same again, anyway i have gone well off the mark havent i, well that monday we sat by her side it got to about 10pm and she was still with us, it had been along day, and we had to go home as my partner needed his medication and sleep too, as he was poorly with severe anemia and low heamoglobin at this point, so we went home and tried to get some rest and agreed to return as early as possible, so that my mu could stay with her overnight and then we could sit with her the following day whilst my mum went home for a rest, that night i tossed and turned and couldnt sleep i had the worst headache ever, so i stayed downstairs so my partner could get some kind of sleep, we travelled back the next day and my mum went home for a few hours rest, it was along day,and my grandma just slept, i didnt want to leave her, i was scared of her dying all alone, i wanted to be with her, my mum arrived at 5 ish that day, we had been in touch all day on the hospital phone, when she arrived we assumed it would be like the night before, so we agreed we would go home for the evening and come back in the morning, so we drove the hours drive home again, we had just walked in when the phone rang, it was my dad, he spoke to my partner and told him that my grandma had died half an hour after we left, i was heartbroken i had sat with her for 2 days solid and the one time she needed me to be ther i had already left, i was devestated. we got straight back in the car and to the hospital to say our final goodbyes to her, she always told me she didnt know what she would have done without me, as when i lived close by i did her shopping, took her places etc, we sat and chatted for ages, and she came to stay with me for nearly 2 weeks whilst she had her new bathroom fitted, we were very close and she told me i was her favourite, but she loved all us grandchildren i know that, but everyone has a favourite everything. they next few days were a blur, my partner was poorly and rushed into hospital and it was looking like i was going to the funeral on my own without him, we wanted him to carry the coffin with my brother and 2 cousins but he was so weak we knew he couldnt do that, thankfully he came out of hospital 2 days before the funeral, he was still very pooly but me and his parnets went to my parents and waited for the funeral cars to arrive, when the coffin arrived i couldnt help but cry, i was so hard to think that my grandma, the woman i loved and respected was now dead and that i would never see her again, it didnt seem real, we had 2 lovely songs played and my uncle did me a cd with them on, so i can listen to them when i want to, not that i can without crying! after that point my partners dad decided he would donate a kidney to my partner so he didnt have to wait on the list, it was the good news we had been waiting for, his dad was just so fed up of seeing him unwell and desperatly wanted to help. so the tests were to begin and they were hoping that he could have the transplant before he needed dialysis which would be great, that year(2006) was up and down , we were always being rushed off to hospital in the night etc, it was very stressful,then my mum and dad decided to take us to whitby for the weekend to try to destress us, the day before we were due to go the hospital deciced taht we couldnt, my partners calcium levels were too high and he would be ill, so my mu and dad went without us and we ended up in the hospital for a few days, it seemed everything we did went wrong, we didnt have any luck what so ever, after that it got worse my partners kidney function got worse and they decided that he needed dialysis again, we didnt want to hear that but we had no choice we knew our lives were now about to change alot