Growing up

   After finally having a break through with how I interact with kids my age it seemed like things were going great. I started making friends in school and was instantly becoming a more social person. The main thing was that I was having some issues. My health was slowly declining. I was getting sick and wasn't as active I use to be. I was getting outside with my new friend ,Ryan ( he will be brought up again later on), and riding bikes alot. The major issue was that I didn't have my stamina like I use to. This was a sign to me that things are going to start changing.
   At the time I was seeing my doctor with regular check ups every few months. Just to check what my levels were and where I was physically. When I was about 10 I was told that my kidney levels were slowly coming up. At first they weren't at real concern, I was working with just one kidney and we knew it was going to fail eventually. I really didn't know what was going to happen. I knew kidney transplant had been brought up but at the time I was till a little naive. Seriously, what normal 10 year old has to think about having a kidney transplant. It was then I realized that what I was telling myself all these years was true. I was not a normal kid.
   When I turned 11 my levels were still a little high. My creatinine was at 3. Normal level is 0.7 to 1.5. It was then when I was transferred to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to go to their nephrology and transplant unit. I was given a tour of the hospital, had blood work done, and had many other test done to see where my progression of my kidney failure was at. Needless to say, though I was use to it, it was all new to me being in this large hospital. I was introduced to my transplant team after the test were done.
   You know how everyone says, "Its a small world"? I will tell you how small it is. After meeting a few of the doctors on the team I was finally going to meet another doctor that was apart of the team. Believe it or not, I have met this doctor but I was an infant when it happened. You see this doctor's name was Dr. Jorge Baluarte. He was my nephrologist when I was born in Cooper Hospital. This gave me alot of comfort knowing that someone on this team new my case personally. After that it was all down hill from there. We started talking about plans on what was going to happen next. What it came down to was that I was going to need a transplant. Next week I will be discussing the beginnings of my transplant.