Rejection And Finding Hope

As I went into my 20’s life was great. I was going to Austin Community College. I had my future in front of me and generally felt great. I had bouts with depression and some bone pain but nothing serious. I finally felt some independence in my life. I was living at my grandmothers house, driving around and hanging out with friends. Things were pretty great all in all.

It was 2013, I had just 1 year left of college to do and I’d have a degree in video game design. I felt fine and continued to go though my labs and other tests for my kidney. Around the end of that year though my labs showed a slight increase in my creatnine. Nothing I hadn’t dealt with before so I didn’t think much of it. As time went on and it was now 2014 they started monitoring my kidney levels more and more because my labs kept gradually showing a very small decrease in kidney function. I started noticing extreme anxiety and panic attacks started happening for me. So I figured okay, I’ll take a break from college since I was having so much anxiety I couldn’t focus on my work. I thought to myself, okay I’ll just get a job for now and go back to ACC when I felt able. Later that Fall I got a job at Gamestop and did great except my feet would always hurt so much. I had those bone issues giving me hell and it just wouldn’t go away. But I enjoyed working while I could the rest of that year.

By December of 2014 my creatnine had gone up enough that they wanted to do a biopsy. I remember going with my parents up to the hospital with me and getting that biopsy done. I was scared and nervous. I didn’t think it would be rejecting. That was the one word me, my parents and family had feared my entire life. It turned out it was showing some signs of rejection but they weren’t totally sure without monitoring it over time. But the Nephrologists had a few things I could try. They tried a month later to “shock” my kidney into functioning like it used to by administering a very large dosage of Prednisone. I can remember all that prednisone made me so emotional the night I had it. I had friends calling me that I hadn’t seen in years wishing me well and hoping all would turn out good. Up till that moment my depression made me believe that I had lost almost all my friends. That they had given up on me because of my toxic negativity. I realized that night I always had some of the best friends imaginable and I wasn’t alone.

Unfortunately we learned that the prednisone didn’t do the trick and tweaking my medications didn’t help. We were going to have to do 1 more biopsy to be sure what exactly was going on. It was late January. I remember because my mom was supposed to go to a concert with her friends and had to miss out on it because of this. I went in for this biopsy like any other, just more worried about how my kidney was functioning. By the end of it I had to stay the night that day so they could run tests and I remember being so anxious about it. I just wanted to know. Like ripping off a band aid, it hurts more to drag it out and take it off slowly versus just ripping it off. I wanted to mentally prep myself for whatever was going to happen next. I can vividly remember that day like it was yesterday. It’s burned into my brain the gravity of the situation and how that day went. And I know God was with me that day because I felt different. It’s strange and very hard to explain but I felt stronger that day. Ready for whatever would happen. I remember my parents being in the hospital room with me. My dad at the end of the bed and my mom to my right. This wasn’t my dr that came in but another nephrologist. He was young and I could tell immediately he didn’t want to share the news with us. He proceeded to tell us that my kidney had signs of acute rejection and this and that. He didn’t want to say straight up that I’d need a transplant and he was trying to make things out as optimistic as possible but I couldn’t understand exactly what he was saying because he was using medical terms. I sat up more in my bed and told him just tell me straight, I can handle it, am I going to need a transplant and a new kidney. It almost seemed like I relieved him a bit by saying that and he then told me simply yes. The news hit me, but I didn’t feel any particular way at first. I just kinda went okay to myself. The Dr then left and said he’d give us some time to process everything. I then remember looking over to my parents and seeing my dad walk over to the window upset. My mom going over to him to comfort him. And it was in that exact moment I realized I had to be strong for my parents. I had to be strong for my family and friends. And I had to be strong for myself. This was no time to be upset or hysterical. I had to toughen myself up and handle whatever this new journey would throw at me. I told my parents not to worry, I had beaten odds before and I’d do it again.

The reason it was rejecting wasn’t really known. They thought it was possibly due to me not taking my medication at scheduled times enough but having dealt with my transplant almost my whole life I was pretty good about taking them. I was losing function every month that year but it was slow. They said my function wasn’t low enough to be put on the transplant waiting list so I just had to go on with my life with my kidney slowly losing function until those numbers got low enough. Once 2015 started I had low enough function that I had to start getting Epogen shots every 2 weeks along with labs to keep monitoring how the kidney was. The Epogen was for low energy from my kidney losing function. All this going on only fueled my depression. As 2015 started I honestly got tired of feeling bad, tired of being tired, not working. I just fell into that pit again that I was in years ago, only this time I felt like there was no point in fighting so much. I just felt like a waste and had very little self esteem. I just didn’t see the point in fighting anymore. I had severe depression and wasn’t coping in healthy ways. It wasn’t until one day out of the blue I got a call from a childhood friend that everything changed. My friend Erica said, I’m gonna help you out and get you support. Tell me your story and we’re gonna make a Facebook group for you. I was completely shocked. I never had anyone reach out to me like that out of the blue and with so much positivity and enthusiasm to truly help me on this kidney journey. To this day I truly believe God was looking out for me and this was my turning point in life. It was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time in life. And so a group was created called Cody’s Warriors to tell my story and chronically show my journey to finding a donor. In my next chapter I’ll explore how that all came about.