After her second kidney transplant, April Wiggins followed the suggestion of her doctor, to become a renal nurse, since her personal experience would help. “We share our war stories,” she says. (Stephanie Oberlander | The Virginian-Pilot)

April Wiggins is both a dialysis nurse and patient.  At 13, Wiggins was diagnosed with lupus that had ruined her kidneys.  At 15, every night, she hooked herself up at 8 p.m. to a dialysis machine that cleansed her blood of toxins for 10 hours.

Now, at 37, Wiggins knows all to well the persistence of waiting for a kidney transplant, the elation of being free from the machine, and the heartache of coming back when the kidneys fail again.

She knows the camaraderie of other patients sitting next to her in dialysis centers, the hope that tethers them to the machines, the help she now gives when she tends to them as a dialysis nurse, when she’s not hooked up to the machine herself.

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The biggest force driving people to dialysis is diabetes, fueled by the nation’s obesity epidemic. High blood pressure is the second-leading cause. And as America ages, the simple correlation between age and kidney disease also pushes up the statistics, said Nancy Armistead, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Renal Coalition.

For Wiggins, it all began when she was 13-years old.  She was tired and listless, didn’t feel like eating anything and lost weight. “It was summer, and my mother just thought I was being lazy” she said.  After becoming lethargic and feverish,  her mother took her to an emergency room. From there, she was transferred to a children’s hospital in Memphis and after two weeks of testing, lupus was the diagnosis.   She was treated with chemotherapy and other medications, but two years later, her kidneys failed.

At 20, her name came up for transplant. The kidney was from someone who had died because her mother was not a good candidate for donation and her sisters were too young.  Unfortunately, the kidney was not a good match.  Three and a half years later it failed and she was back on the machine.  At this point, she was in nursing school so, instead of reading magazines while on dialysis, she studied.

In 1999, her name was called again for another transplant and this time the match was perfect.

Her  kidney doctor  suggested she become a renal nurse, since her personal experience would help. When she became a registered nurse in 2002, she drove straight to a dialysis center to apply for a job.

Unfortunately, she began to feel the tell-tale signs of her kidney failing: fatigue, swelling, weakness.  By September  2007 she was on both sides of the dialysis chair.  “I think both times I went through depression, but not as long a period the second time as the first. I knew it was coming. I mentally prepared myself.”

Wiggins’ story is a remarkable one.  Though she has been in and out of the dialysis chair, as a dialysis nurse she brings an added benefit to her patients through her own experience.  As she says, “I fuss at them” because she knows all to well how hard it is to maintain discipline while on dialysis.

You can read more about this remarkable woman and her work with others on dialysis at HamptonRoads.com: “One woman on both sides of dialysis.”  Great story.