The Renal Rebels

THROW ME YOUR MONEY!!! - For a good cause of course.

For those who know me (Jason), know just how much I enjoy doing crazy s@#* to raise money for one good reason or another. And this year, I have wrangled a team of similarly crazy folk to join me.

Now the plan was to climb Mt Everest, but turns out that can be quite expensive… and dangerous. So instead, throughout October we endeavour to take part in the Big Red Solks Run where we will run, walk and ride 60kms with the aim to help promote awareness of kidney disease and raise funds to improve care and support for those impacted from kidney disease.

Why 60k's??? Because that is one kilometer for each hour a person with kidney disease spends each month on dialisis. That's 60 hours per month.

The reason this is important is because I suffered from diabetic nephropathy, a type of kidney disease brought on by having diabetes that damages the parts of the kidneys that filter blood.

At the end of 2009 I had reached end stage kidney failure and whilst on the waiting list to receive a transplant I required treatment by means of peritoneal dialysis, a method where a blood cleansing solution is cycled through the lining of your abdomen.

Lucky enough for me my wait was extremely short, only 5 months. However this is not the usual case for most holding out for their life changing / saving transplant. For most the wait can be years. This is years of having to ordeal weekly or daily visits to dialysis centres to have your blood cleaned so they can live another day… just to go through it again. This is years of spending parts or most of their day feeling so tired, run down or sick that they are unable to get out of bed, even though they really want to. This is years of their life they just can't enjoy like they would want to because they are at the mercy of their body restricting their ability to do so. And in a number of cases, this is what it is like for them for the rest of their life which is usually cut short due to the disease.

And the most unfortunate parts are that this can happen to anyone at any age, and it can go unnoticed until it is too late.

I know what it is like to suffer kidney disease and I hate the fact that others have to suffer it too. That is why I am asking you, my family, my friends and even those unacquainted to me to help me support this cause by donating to Kidney Health Australia and or joining us this October

Thank you for reading.