Inspirational local woman, Alison McCarthy, will walk 190 kms next week to fundraise for Irish Kidney Association
The Irish Kidney Association is a charitable voluntary organisation founded in 1978. They are dedicated to meeting the needs of renal patients and their families and carers, living with and affected by end stage renal disease. These needs are spread across all aspects of life – medical, social and psychological.
The profile of the kidney patient ranges from infanthood to the elderly who are undergoing various methods of treatment – haemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis (both CAPD and APD) and kidney transplantation.
Kidney disease affects all age groups, both men and women. The reality of kidney disease is that it may impinge on many strands of a person’s life including: health, employment, education, social life and relationships, physical fitness and general well-being.
From valuable donations and fundraisers, they can provide services such as counselling, financial aid, the use of a patient support centre and patient holidays.
Alison (McCarthy) Fogarty from Tipperary town is doing a fundraising walk for the Irish Kidney Association. Alison will walk the distance from Tipperary Town to Beaumont Hospital where she underwent a successful Kidney Transplant over eight months ago.
For 30 years of her life Alison knew nothing only illness. As a child in Crumlin Hospital she was diagnosed with Bartter syndrome, which is a general term for a group of rare genetic disorders in which there are specific defects in kidney function. These defects impair the kidney’s ability to reabsorb salt and cause imbalances in various electrolyte and fluid concentrations in the body.
In 2005 Alison developed sever arthritic gout from her neck to her ankles and was in pain 365 days of the year. Flare-ups of symptoms like pain and swelling come and go in periods called gout attacks. In January 2015 she was told by her consultant that it would be inevitable that she would have to go on dialysis. In April Alison started her journey on peritoneal dialysis, which is a treatment for kidney failure that uses the lining of your abdomen, or belly, to filter your blood inside your body.
During peritoneal dialysis, a cleansing fluid flows through a tube into part of the stomach area, also called the abdomen. Six months after starting her dialysis Alison got her first call for a transplant. She subsequently had her transplant in Beaumont Hospital and all seemed well and she was left home after seven days.
A few days later and feeling unwell she returned to Beaumont for post transplant bloods and following an ultra sound discovered that she had a clot to the artery of the new kidney and unfortunately it had to be removed. She had to go on hemodialysis, where the blood is pumped through a filter, called a dialyzer.
The recovery was huge and it took a couple of years before she went back on the donor list.
She subsequently had to return to hospital for a parathyroid removal and 2 weeks after returning home she again had to go to hospital with pneumonia and a collapsed lung followed by loss of mobility and severe weight loss. There were many occasions when it looked like Alison might not make it, but she fought to regain mobility and was eventually discharged home.
She was on dialysis for 10 hours at night and again during the day. At the end of 2023 she sought assistance from the Irish Kidney Association and she received great support, which was a great confidence boost to her.
She subsequently got the call from Beaumont for a transplant and on the second occasion everything went according to plan and the surgery was a great success.
From the 6th to the 13th of March Alison is doing a fundraiser for the Irish Kidney Association. She is walking the distance (190 kilometres) around her own area which is the distance from Tipperary to Beaumont.
On the final day 13th March, which is World Kidney Day, she will walk from Heuston Station to Beaumont Hospital as a tribute to her donor. Later that evening on her return from Dublin she will stop in Cashel and walk to the Rock of Cashel, where it will be lit in purple to mark World Kidney Day.
Anyone can donate to the fundraiser and every cent will go directly to the Irish Heart Foundation. The link to the fundraiser is as follows; https://www.idonate.ie/fundraiser/AlisonFogarty
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