Second Kidney Failure

In February of 2016, I was in a car accident. It was a head on collision by someone running a red light. I had a Toyota Corolla and the person who hit me had a Toyota Rav-4. In this accident, all the airbags deployed and my car was completely totaled. My eye had dropped into my face and my whole body was in pain and in complete shock.

That moment at the scene not one person came look at me until my uncle and husband showed up. I was completely alone. Cops surrounded me but did not check on me. I could not see but yet they wanted to me to get my documentation for them to make a report. I had to tell them as well that Walgreens had cameras and would show the full accident on camera and it did. It showed that the lady sped in the turning lane and her light was red as well. So she received a ticket and we exchanged insurance.

A second kidney failure

Later that night, I had my husband take me to the emergency room because I had an excruciating headache. They gave me pain medications to help with my headache, but a week later, it came back. I realized later that this was a symptom of kidney failure. These kidney failure symptoms were completely different from the last one.

I ended up being unable to have a bowel movement. I was retaining fluid to where I would have fluid around my heart and lungs and into my bloodstream. I was given Furosemide later to help with that, and I was admitted into the hospital again and reconnected with the same kidney specialist. He placed me back on Cellcept, but I also started infusions called Rituximab. This drug was used to treat rheumatoid arthritis but it has also helped with my kidneys and lupus. This drug is a chemotherapy drug so it affected my skin really bad where I was then diagnosed with discoid lupus. I have completed two treatments.

Changing my perspective on life

Who would have ever known that a car accident would cause so much stress on my body to where it sends me through a kidney failure as well? It changed my perspective on life and my nephrologist was praying for me at every appointment. He wanted to make sure I was healed from head to toe. He told me to start eating avocados because certain blood work would come back and my levels was low and wanted to keep me leveled.

This kidney failure landed me on about 12 medications. I used to vomit blood and have issues where blood clots come out of my skin in random areas. I went from being 190 pounds to being 135 pounds once my body started to heal. I need to be on a low sodium diet while on all these medications as well. The infusions caused me to sleep most of the time and drink more water. I must say, this saved my life. By this time things started to look around for me and I felt like I was grateful God gave me another chance.