A Fife mum who lost her husband to a brain tumour is now facing a health battle of her own – after being diagnosed with kidney failure.
Kerry Brown, 38, from Dunfermline, needs a live organ donor after being told her kidneys were failing two years ago.
The devastating news came after loss of her husband, Andy, to brain cancer, aged 33 in 2018.
Since her diagnosis, members of Kerry’s family have been tested, but none have been a match for the donation of a kidney.
Getting a new kidney would allow Kerry to end the five-hour, three-days-a-week rounds of dialysis that are keeping her alive – freeing up time to spend with her three children, Eve, 15, Connor, 13, and Lewis, 6.
Speaking to Kingdom FM, Kerry said that finding a match for a transplant would “change her life”.
She said: “There’s so many things I can’t do with the children so I feel a lot of guilt.
“But a new kidney from a live donor would mean the world.”
Close friend Louise Smith is supporting Kerry in her bid to find a donor – and is urging anyone who may be able to help to come forward.
She says her friend deserves a healthier and more normal life.
Louise said: “Kerry and her family’s lives have been flipped upside down due to her kidneys failing.
“Her kids are desperate to get their mum back.
“Dialysis three times a week for five hours at a time, the very thing keeping her alive, is having terrible effects on her body.
“This means Kerry can’t take her children on holiday, do activities that she’d like to with them or take her little boy to school every morning.
“Although some of Kerry’s family have been tested to see if they can donate a kidney to her, none of them are a match.
‘We need to find Kerry a live donor’
“A transplant would mean that Kerry could live a longer, healthier and more ‘normal’ life.
“Six people in the UK die every week waiting on an organ transplant.
“We need to find Kerry a live donor.”
Kerry, who raised thousands of pounds in her husband’s memory, wants the public to become more aware of the early signs of kidney failure.
She admits she may have gone to hospital sooner if she had known more about the disease.
She said: “Some of the first symptoms I felt, I just felt really fatigued.
“I remember trying to walk up the stairs at work and got to the top and was really exhausted, that wasn’t like me at all.
“I had got a sort of tremor in my hands, a sweet taste in my mouth.”
The plea for a live kidney donor comes ahead of World Kidney Day on March 14.
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