COUNSELLING

“A few years ago I received my first kidney transplant. Receiving a new organ comes with so many positives I wouldn’t have even believed it if I didn’t go through it myself. Before my transplant I thought once I got a new kidney I would be fine as a kidney was something I needed and wanted for a very long time, therefore, the whole experience would be all positive. So it was completely unexpected when I started to have overwhelming feelings of sadness and guilt and even some pressure to get back to “normal”. I didn’t like the way I was feeling so looked on the IKA website just to see if they had any information that may help. I saw they had a counselling service and after a month of thinking about it I decided to make an appointment with one of the counsellors. I felt a bit nervous for the first appointment but my counsellor was so lovely and relaxed. She made me feel at ease straight away. She assured me it would be confidential and gave me the option to change counsellors if I didn’t feel comfortable. I went every week for an hour and talked, in a relaxed atmosphere, through how I was feeling and what I wanted to change. My counsellor helped me to understand how I felt and where the feelings were coming from. Going to counselling helped me to recognise, understand and cope with my own feelings and gave me resources to support myself to work through how I was feeling. Although it’s hard to make the first step by making an appointment, I can honestly say it was one of the best decisions I have made. Doctors, nurses, surgeons and of course donors help make you healthy and well but the counselling service at the Irish Kidney Association helped me feel like me again.”