Ah, the transplant games. I remember when I was diagnosed initially and I was doing my work-up for the transplant list, my transplant co-ordinator mentioned the transplant games. I didn’t think much of it then. I had just been diagnosed and all I knew is that I wanted a new kidney.

Lets go back in time. I have always had issues with my weight. When I left high school, I started dieting on and off. By the time I was 20 years old, I decided that I needed to lose 10kg and fast. So I went on a Chinese herbal tea diet. I lost the weight and I was skinny for my 21st birthday party.

While I might have reached my goal weight, I also looked strange half of the time and my head looked way too big for my body

That obviously did not last very long and I quickly gained the weight back. Between the age of 22 and 23 I started crash dieting again. This did not work. So when I turned 23, I told myself it was time for a real change. I started going to the gym and I started running. I slowly started loving it and I even had a personal trainer. I didn’t have to lose a lot of weight. Instead I started building muscle and started toning. I loved my body so so much.

And then I got sick. I hate saying that because of my illness, something in my life change. But in this case, it did. I tried to continue training but it was hard. I was tired all the time and my body became weaker the longer I stayed on dialysis. So I gave up on going to the gym. I am now two months post transplant and I am ready to go back to where I was.

So I came into contact with Hermann from the South African Transplant Sports  Association (SATSA) and decided that in 2018, I will train for the 2019 World Transplant Games. The qualifiers will be in Port Elizabeth in July 2018 so I do not have that much time to train. The actual games will be in London (my favourite place to visit) in August 2019. I will either being doing track and field or the 5km race. I joined the Itheko Sport Athletic Club and they  will be helping me train. Strangely enough, they are the same running club that helped my father lose weight to be able to donate to me. I will be documenting my journey on my blog,  Instagram and Facebook for you all to follow. I think it is going to be interesting to see how my body has gone from being completely weak to athletic. It might be tough or it might be easy. Who knows? All I know is that 2018 is my year and I plan on living as much as I can. At some point I will join the gym too but for now, I will be running!

Tonight will be my first night of training. I am looking forward to see where this goes.

Wish me luck!