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Great, just what London needs...

....another unemployed, freelance writer with a pipe dream and no kidneys. I am 23, an ex-teacher, living in London, (currently) watching Never Mind the Buzzcocks and yes, yes...ok...I'm writing a blog because I want to write professionally. By which I mean, I want to sit on my sofa eating Party Rings and get paid for it.

The reason I'm lucky enough to be able to pursue writing as a career is because I am currently on heamodialysis, awaiting a kidney. Apparently having four hour sessions of dialysis three times a week isn't particularly conducive to a career in...well, anything, as it turns out. If, by reading this blog, you are inspired to sign up to the national donor list, all the better; but this blog is not intended to be dogmatic. 8055 people are currently awaiting an organ transplant in the UK, but organ failure (kidney, in my own case) is a tough sell: we 8055 losers (couldn't even make their own body parts work...dicks) rely on you other 51,991,945 (is that millions? I did it on the calculator on my phone...) to help us out. And it's not sexy. But it can provide some cheap, macabre laughs I shall try and relate - articulately - here.

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Postscript

You wouldn't believe where I am. You could guess, if you've seen the gratuitous images of my self-satisfied gurning face in front of an infinity pool on Facebook...otherwise you might find it hard to imagine the paradise in which I currently find myself. I am in Dubai. Bar Abby Clancey and the cast of TOWIE, is is not everyone's idea of paradise - it actually wasn't mine. It is exciting, exotic and fucking hot, but the skyscrapers and traffic, the desert and cultural  deficiency (not to mention the chavs that clutter up the Ritz Carlton these days, I mean honestly...) suggest you'd be hard-pushed to call it paradise. It is vaulted to utopian heights simply because, four-months after the transplant, I am here. My nearest and dearest suffered for seven years as I dreamily aired my wanderlust. Yet the reward of a post-transplant holiday seemed too extravagant a prize for which to yearn - wasn't a life free from dialysis enough? Wasn't having a drink when t...

The nights are closing in

The final step of my home dialysis journey (bleugh, journey...sounds like I'm on The X Factor) begins on the 22nd July when Nurse Carla will arrive with a sleeping bag and, presumably, some strong coffee, and sit on my sofa all night whilst I perform my first nocturnal session. It is the dialysis equivalent of hiring a wet nurse. During a regular daytime session, nothing should go wrong unless I have lined the machine carelessly with one eye on Only Connect and consequently forgotten to connect/un-clamp/tighten something pivotal. Dermot should behave, stay quiet and not do any of his ghastly alarm-yelping. At night, however, the chances of rolling over onto the tubes and occluding the blood flow, or the needles falling out and slowly bleeding to death, are much higher, what with all the concurrent sleeping I'll be doing; when this happens Dermot senses DANGER and screams at me. Undoubtedly, my first session with Carla will be seamless; I know from experience that it is only ...

The phone rings Part III: The Final Chapter

Two weeks ago today, I was in surgery receiving my new kidney. The hospital kicked me out in less than a week and over the last seven days I have divided my time between the transplant clinic and my sofa, with the occasional shuffle up to Sainsbury's to ensure the muscles in my legs don't atrophy. I've had the pleasure of a steady stream of visitors, all of whom have bought me yet more wonderful and totally unnecessary gifts – I have been royally spoilt and I am stupidly grateful to all of you. The kidney itself appears to be going great guns. I was initially attending clinic on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and was committed to doing so, but the hospital are so pleased with me they are happy to start seeing me just twice a week. The pivotal result they test for is my level of creatinine, a substance that occurs naturally in the body as a result of muscle break down. The kidney filters out creatinine through the urine, therefore if there is lots present in the blood it is...