Imagine sleeping hooked to a machine every single night, just so your body can do what a healthy kidney would do without you ever thinking about it. That has been Maddy Warren’s normal since she was 13 years old, when an autoimmune condition took both of her kidneys and put her on dialysis for good. She could have let that become her whole story. Instead, she climbed the highest mountain in Scotland, jumped out of a plane, and kept going until jumping out of planes became her favorite thing to do. Her talk asks a question worth sitting with: what is the difference between surviving something and actually living through it? For Maddy, the answer changed everything about how she sees her own life.
“I’m so much happier that it’s in my control, it’s my machine, and I run my life the way I want to, than having to be tied to a clinic, to a hospital, and being seen as a patient and as someone who’s sick.”
~ Maddy Warren
instagram.com/queenofdialysis/
Two Videos:
Queen of dialysis describes her dependence on a machine | Maddy Warren | TEDxRoyalTunbridgeWells (YouTube)
Queen of Dialysis: What Happened Next | Maddy Warren | TEDxRoyalTunbridgeWells (YouTube)
Related Articles:
Nocturnal dialysis: Maddy Warren’s patient experience ~ kidneyresearchuk.org
The Story of my Lifeline ~ ukkidney.org
‘I have no kidneys, but I’m doing the London Marathon for a second time’ ~ bbc.com
Exercise: Go mad with Maddy (YouTube)
Related Blogs:
Being on Kidney Dialysis
My Experience at the Kidney Dialysis Clinic
Combo #2: Peritoneal Dialysis and Diabetes
About Kidney Dialysis
Sheesh! Maddy is SO “contagious” in such a happy/energetic/enthusiastic ways !!! I’m eager to watch her exercise. TED Talk..
AND.. to learn more about the new, improved EZ dialysis machine possibility!! I’m certainly enjoying the learning that happens with these TED Talks. Thanx for sharing them.