Doctor Parade: complete.

The doctor parades are when I repeatedly see several doctors in quick succession, because I'm in the process of getting on the kidney transplant list, there are a lot of doctors (and social workers, etc.) involved, and it's easiest to just get them all in the same place and have me see them all one after the other.

I need a transplant because I have aggressive IgA nephropathy, a relatively rare autoimmune disorder where the antibody Immunoglobin A, produced by my intestines and bone marrow, collects excessively in my kidneys and destroys their ability to filter waste out of my system. I first found out about this in June of last year, and I've been on hemodialysis ("vampire time") ever since. A transplant will allow me to stop dialysis and live more or less normally.

@noelle I wish you luck and hope you find a donor soon, the world is a better place with you in it.

If I may ask, would a transplant help the disease, in that the new kidney will be immune to the problem and potentially be a long term solution. Or would a transplant add years to your life but otherwise be attacked in much the same way as your other kidneys? If the latter then is there any sort of long-term solution such as a bone marrow transplant that you cant hope for as well?

@freemo As it's been explained to me, the disease would typically take as long to destroy a transplanted kidney as a transplanted kidney usually lasts anyway. So it's not something the doctors are terribly worried about.

@noelle I suppose thats a good thing, at least if we are talking about enough time to cover the rest of your life :)

@freemo Heh. I'll likely need a second transplant in my 60s or 70s (depending on how long it takes for me to get one this time around!), but it's enough to keep me going.

@noelle Fair... and I dont know your age but assuming 60s or 70s is at least 20 or 30 years out then chances are medical science will be much farther along by then and your options and success rate for a full life and a less traumatic ordeal in getting a kidney, are a very real possiblity. so lets hope it buys you enough time for the disease and its treatments to be far more trivial than your current experience.