Visits to the physician, injections, tablets, diets, bans, restrictions, worries, hospital visits.

Many questions arise when people find out about me and my kidney transplant. Some questions can be answered quickly and easily. For others, however, it is sometimes not so easy to express my thoughts and feelings.
I was 10 years old when both of my kidneys failed. Why? I have no idea. But at the time it meant a lot of questions, uncertainty and one of the biggest life changes in my family.
Known as a handball family, my parents, three siblings and I had to change everything we knew. My room was set up for dialysis. My older brother regularly lugged boxes of bandages into the house. The two nurses could no longer barge into the room unasked. Disinfectant in the bathroom. Plastic waste from the Bachfell dialysis in the garbage cans in the neighborhood. Visits to the physician, injections, tablets, diets, bans, restrictions, worries, hospital visits. All of this dominated my life back then. But there was also hope, love, care and understanding. For a whole three and a half years. And then the day of salvation finally came in July 2004.

The call came at night and my brother answered it. "We have a present for Mareike. There's a donor kidney." My father and I set off immediately. In our luggage? Hope, faith, fears and lots of emotions. But everything actually worked out wonderfully. The surgeons at the MHH did an incredible job. The kidney started working quickly and I soon felt better. And I still am to this day!

It is a feeling of deep gratitude.

Every time I take my tablets, my thoughts wander for a moment to my organ donation and what it means to me. It is a feeling of deep gratitude. And it encompasses so much. Starting with the family who lost their child and decided to donate their organs. Unfortunately, my thanks cannot reach them personally. I can't tell them to their faces how well I am doing thanks to their decision. I can't convey gestures of gratitude to them. At least not in a direct way. But I can express my gratitude by appreciating the kidney, their gift to my life, and by consciously savoring and living my life every day. I say thank you with my YES to life.

I say: "Yes to life." And what do you say?

My gratitude also includes the physicians, the transplant team, the nurses, the pharmacists, the association for children with kidney disease, the people who are developing immunosuppressants, working in research and campaigning for organ donation. Thanks to their commitment, there is so much that I can experience. Which, I am sure, I can also experience with a different intensity than many others who have never dealt with the subject before. Thanks to you, I can lead an almost normal life. With a great family, wonderful friends, a job that inspires me and, above all, good health. My name is Mareike. I am now 30 years old, a teacher, have had a transplant for 17 years and say: "Yes to life." And what do you say?