Health is Number One

The one thing I’ve learned and am still learning while living with kidney disease is that your health should be your number one priority.

As obvious as it sounds, it wasn't very obvious for me. I never used to live my life considering how my actions would impact my health, even though I have always known I was living with kidney disease. It was only once my health was clearly impacting by my daily life and by my choices that I decided I needed to take action.

I think when you haven’t had to deal with health issues previously, you take your health for granted. It’s normal to push through being sick and keep working or to drink and smoke knowing that in the long run it may cause long term effects, but along as it's okay now, you don't really think twice.

Acknowledging my actions were harmful

For me especially, I don’t think I really grasped the idea that my health was going to be impacted by my actions. Especially because in the earlier stages of chronic kidney disease you symptoms aren't obvious and since I was born with it, I felt I hadn't noticeably effected me before so why would it now.

As my kidney started declining (I'm now stage 5) I really had to acknowledge what I was doing to cause harm to my kidneys and what things I needed to do to protect my health for longevity. This is something I’ve never had to do nor expect to do in my 20s when you’re suppose to be careless and reckless.

Looking out for myself

It didn’t happen overnight, but over many years and lots of learning. Similar to learning about a new diet, but I had to how to adjust my whole lifestyle. Instead of socializing, I rested. Instead of working full time, I now work part time. Instead of eating sweets, I eat fruit. Instead of drinking, I treat myself to an açai bowl and coffee on the weekends. The more my kidney function declined, the more changes I needed to make.

If felt like the changes never stopped, but my resilience also grew, and I learned to roll with the punches.

Although a lot has changed in order to put my health first, none of it has been bad. The change was hard, looking at the change in writing all of the changes I've made has benefitted me massively and would if I had kidney disease or not.

Health is number one

Something I'll always remember was when I had just started a new job. I was feeling very stressed and I wanted to ask to go part time. When I asked my boss he said, "Your here to live on earth, you can't do much without your health."

Health is needs to be our number one no matter what!