Kidney Function Blood Test: Home Kit – £35

What are the Shared Stories and Cases?

One cannot live with such creatinine.

“You want to lie down, you want to stand up, you want to recline – whatever. After so many years of function changes, I got used to it. The devices are completely different; many years ago, they were old. As I am active, it was a tragedy for me at first.

And I was told that I wouldn’t work. And my life will become disabled. I looked at the people on dialysis who came there after work and decided that I would also work.”

• On dialysis

Natalya Nabiullina came across the word “dialysis” 20 years ago; she had never heard of it before.

— In 2002, on New Year’s Day, my blood pressure rose very much. After this incident, the hospital took tests: my creatinine was more than 1000, and urea was 31. They told me that something was probably mixed up in the laboratory because they don’t live with such creatinine,” she recalls.

Natalya was hospitalized, treated, and then informed that she was now becoming a patient at a dialysis centre.

The first time on dialysis was quite scary: I lay motionless because I was afraid to move, especially to move my arm in which the catheter was installed. I have a hereditary kidney disease: people with it have loose veins, so they made a fistula for me, not at the level of the hand but at the level of the elbow. She worked for 9 years. I recently had surgery to install a fistula again. Dialysis itself is a painless procedure. This is an extension of life, I think,” says Natalya.

• Active lifestyle

Natalya worked at the academy, then went for dialysis and continued to live, as she notes, a full life.

It wasn’t noticeable at work: there, at dialysis, I checked the students’ work—luckily, I had one hand free. I was preparing for my lessons, so it didn’t stress me out. I continued to live a normal life. Of course, I had to lie down after the procedure, but I also had to prepare for the lessons, so I didn’t have much time to lie down. Dialysis took five hours a day: while you arrive, go through, and go home. If 5 hours three times a week are occupied, then the rest of the time is left for less – for personal life, for hobbies, but nothing: you still manage to live an active life, – Natalya rejoices.

Now she has time to garden, knit, and read, but more chemical literature than fiction.

I want more free time but can’t do anything. But I live, I continue to live,” says Natalya.

• A transplant

After 9 years, in August 2011, she received a kidney transplant, but in 2020, she returned to dialysis again because it stopped working:

I looked at life completely differently, both after dialysis and after a transplant. Every morning and every evening, I thank God for what he gave me, for the opportunity to see the world. And for the organs, and for the fact that now there are such dialysis machines.

Now, Natalya undergoes treatment three times a week. During the day, she tutors, and in the evenings, she goes to procedures.

“I thank God for the disease”: a story of love and transplantation of patients of the Republican Clinical Hospital of Tatarstan.

Arthur and Dinara Mukhamaev have had three kidney transplants between them. They met while recovering from their first transplant. Already together, they had to endure a severe organ rejection in one of them. How two loving hearts found each other in the transplant department of the Republican Clinical Hospital.

“It was worth getting sick to find love.”

The destinies of Arthur and Dinara were connected by the disease, strange as it may sound.

“It was worth getting sick to meet such a person. I thank God for my illness. Thanks to her, I learned that so many kind people are around us, and I met my husband,” Dinara Mukhama admitted in a conversation with the agency.

Now, they have one last name and six kidneys between them. They have a common favourite thing – their recording studio. He writes music; she writes poetry. But now everything is calm and smooth, and there were some difficult trials.

It all started in the transplant department of the Clinical Hospital, or rather, in a chat that Arthur and a friend created in 2017 – they added people who had already undergone a transplant or were preparing for one. There, the participants supported each other.

Arthur himself underwent a transplant in 2016 at the Clinical Hospital.

Since childhood, he suffered from pyelonephritis but did not attach much importance to it. Serious problems began when he turned 25; doctors confronted him with a terrible fact – his kidneys were failing. Arthur has a rare fourth blood type. His mother gave him a kidney for transplantation. The operation was successful; the organ took root.

Dinara’s problems began at the age of 23.

After long examinations and multiple Screening reports of kidney function blood tests over time, the doctor’s verdict is that they are failing. She needed hemodialysis – blood is pumped through a machine that cleans it. Dinara waited three and a half years for her transplant; a suitable organ was still not found. The operation was carried out in 2014 at the Clinical Hospital.

Arthur and Dinara first chatted mainly on medical topics, then switched to personal messages. Today, both admit that a flair of romance shrouded their communication from the beginning.

Both were 30 years old at the time.

According to Dinara, both already knew exactly what they wanted from the relationship.

“I’m from Chelny, Dinara is from Almetyevsk. When I came to her a month after meeting her, met her family, my relatives, I realized that this was my person,” said Arthur.

According to Dinara, from Arthur’s first visit to them, her mother was delighted with him. In the fifth month of communication, they decided to get married.

Its revealed that the transplanted organ began to be rejected.

Family life went on as usual: they took medications together by the hour and recorded music. Two and a half yearsafter the transplant, Arthur’s kidney began to fail again: the first, second, and third rejection… The doctors’ prognosis was disappointing; the organ stopped working. The man suffered internal bleeding, which was accompanied by terrible pain.

“There was a lot of fear, but showing it to my husband was impossible. The doctors supported me then and saved his life. He struggled, looking at me,” Dinara said.

Ksenia Sitkina, a nephrologist at the transplant department of the Clinical Hospital, confirmed that the patient was very sick and was in intensive care. The entire team of the transplant department remembers how Dinara did not leave Arthur’s bedside even a single step. She steadfastly endured with him all the pain that he experienced and stubbornly helped him cope with it.

“Unfortunately, Arthur had an aggressive underlying autoimmune disease. The report has shown that it was subjected to a massive attack by its own body, and therefore, complications arose that led to a transplantectomy. It’s always a pity when a related transplant ends quite quickly,” explained Ksenia.

All three of Arthur’s organs were not working.

He was again forced to return to hemodialysis – a constant, exhausting, but vital procedure.

Arthur found the strength to get back on the waiting list for a transplant only a year after the incident.

“There are two important factors in re-entering the waiting list; the first is the state of health when he returned for dialysis. All patients understand that they need to keep abreast of their condition. And the second is psychological readiness for repeated surgery. Some patients, unfortunately, are afraid of repeating the situation that happened to them,” noted the nephrologist.

“In 2020, he was called up, but he wasn’t mentally ready, refused, and simply didn’t go. He said: “I’m afraid,” the wife recalls.

By the way, kidneys can wait for a suitable organ for three to four years. All this time, they live thanks to hemodialysis.

I tried not to think about it.

I relied on the will of God: if they call, they will call, no, no. But they called me,” said Arthur.

Invitations were received in May and June 2022; then, the man was already ready for a transplant. Still, according to immunological Kidney analysis, something didn’t work out. Both were better suited to other patients. The third call came a month ago – in July.

“We were in the forest, picking berries. It took us three hours to arrive home, and we had to go into the village and grab a bag. But we made it,” said Arthur.

Then, the work of immunologists began – checkups, reconciliations, and other medical manipulations. Doctors carefully checked whether the organ would fit and whether Arthur was ready for surgery. By her admission, Dinara thought then, it’s not for nothing that they say that God loves the Trinity – the operation will take place and be successful.

It was transplanted.

And the organ, which was transplanted in 2016, was removed.

“The second graft was placed on the other side; due to the presence of scars, it was anatomically difficult to transplantto the same place. It’s technically more difficult for doctors, but the survival rate is better,” said Anvar Amirov, a urologist surgeon at the transplant department of the Clinical Hospital.

Such operations are long and complex, taking at least four hours.

“But this is only half the battle because then the patient needs to be taken out,” admits the doctor.

“We miss each other, being in the same apartment.”

Now, the couple continues to create, often writing songs for Tatar pop stars.

“We have very warm relations. And we part only when, for example, I go to the hospital or he goes somewhere. We are together all day long – 24 hours. And we have a home studio; he works behind the wall, and I work on the other. We see each other in the kitchen,” the woman said.

“We have time to get bored,” Arthur added.

“It was worth getting sick to meet such a person. I thank God for my illness. Thanks to it, I learned that so many kind people are around us. I met my husband. We have the most wonderful doctors, the most compassionate and kind. Medicines Online team – Call at any time – they will help,” the woman shared.

This year, 43 kidneys have already been transplanted to the RCH. Who knows, perhaps one of these patients, along with a new organ and a new life, will find happiness and love like our heroes.