This site shares personal experiences and is not a substitute for medical advice.
For clinical guidance, please speak to your renal team.
The Kidney Chapter
One family’s lived experience…unfiltered.
When diagnosed, we were blindsided and didn’t know what to expect.
So we’re sharing what it was really like for us, from the perspectives of family and friends.
If kidney disease has touched your life,
as a patient, donor, or someone close, this space is for you.
Real experiences.
No expectations.
Just honesty.
Who we are
Living with kidney disease… together
We’re a family who have been living with kidney disease for several years.
Not just as a diagnosis,
but as a shared experience.
John is living with kidney failure.
Lindsey, his wife, does not have kidney disease, but her life, and their family life, has been deeply shaped by it.
Lorna, John’s sister-in-law, is the living donor.
Together, we’ve come to understand something that isn’t always said out loud:
Kidney disease rarely affects just one person.
It reaches into relationships,
family life,
work,
and the everyday routines you don’t expect to change.
Finding your way through it
Like many families, we found ourselves surrounded by information.
Advice. Opinions. Research.
Some of it helpful.
Some of it less so.
Much of it overwhelming, especially at the beginning.
We tried to make sense of it all.
Not perfectly.
Just honestly.
What experience teaches you
Over time, not through instruction but through lived experience,
we began to understand what felt supportive,
what was worth holding onto,
and what could be gently let go.
There have been difficult moments.
But there have also been steadier ones,
moments of connection, clarity,
and a quiet kind of reassurance.
Why The Kidney Chapter exists
This space has grown out of that experience.
It isn’t here to offer advice,
or to tell anyone what they should do.
It’s here to share what it has actually felt like to live through this,
from different perspectives, within one family.
In the hope that it brings
a little perspective,
a little reassurance,
and a sense that you are not facing this alone.
John, Lindsey and Lorna
Voices
Person Diagnosed (PD)
(PD) Partner
(PD) Children
(PD) Parent
(PD) Siblings
(PD) Extended Family
(PD) Friends
Donor (D)
(D) Partner
(D) Children
(D) Parents
(D) Siblings
(D) Extended Family
(D) Friends
Contact Us
We’re not here to tell you how to live or what to do. We’ve simply been living alongside kidney disease for the past six years, and we share our experiences openly - what we’ve tried, what we’ve learned, and how it’s shaped our everyday lives along the way.
If a conversation feels like it might help, you’re very welcome to get in touch.
And if you’d like to be part of the KidneyKinUK family, or share your own experience, whatever your relationship with kidney disease, please complete the form. We’d really love to hear from you.
