Brisbane Marathon: Adam Freeman

I was diagnosed with IGA Nephropathy in 2012 as since then it has felt like a steady progression of loss. First it was simple things like freedom to live without medication or diet restrictions. Slowly over time I’ve had to give up more and once I had progressed to kidney failure, I lost true freedom and was now chained to a machine every second day to live.

After damaging my AV Fistula in an accident playing sport, I now had to give up more, things I loved which included riding my dirt bike and playing soccer.

I received a kidney transplant which I thought was the best day of my life. Unfortunately, due to the immune suppression required after a transplant I contracted an infection in my brain, lungs and skin that almost killed me. It was devastating as I lost the new kidney as well. After 7 months in hospital, I was back home and 10 steps behind where I was before the attempted transplant.  

It sounds like a sorry tale, but it isn’t, I had a choice, to sit around and feel sorry for myself, or to accept what I had as my new normal and do everything I could to be the best husband, father and person I could from here. And that’s what I chose. I view dialysis not as a weight that drags me down but as a process which lifts me up, it keeps me alive and I’m going to use it to make sure I live. I make dialysis work for me, and this is when I decided I’m sick of losing, despite being on dialysis I’m going to find some things to gain. Every day I make sure I can find something that fills up my physical, mental and emotional buckets. It could be something simple like playing a game of chess, reading a book, listening to a podcast, catching up with friends and family, working out, developing my own meal plans, being in charge of the success or failure of my dialysis treatment.

Once you gain that control it stops defining you as just a dialysis patient waiting for a transplant, but now as a person first and foremost who just happens to need to dialyse every other day.

It was during this quest to push forward in life I had a goal to run a half marathon on dialysis, I’d never met anyone who’d done that. I’ve since run over 10 half marathons on dialysis and now am going to put my best effort into running the full 42.2kms. No guarantee I can do it, its taken a lot of planning and medical supervision to get this far, but hey, lets give it a crack !!

There are over 25,000 people in Australia living with kidney failure. There is no cure. Dialysis or a kidney transplant are needed to stay alive.

I’m fundraising to help transform the future of kidney disease. Please support me and help fund vital services and research to ensure those affected can live their best lives.