Hoping to help others with her own experiences

A lot of kidney patients don’t have adequate support, so I hope that sharing my views on the mental health aspect of kidney disease was helpful,” says Sabina. “Personally, I feel really pleased to have been involved. People have even told me I’m brave to have shared my experiences. 

“For me, hearing other patients' stories is reassuring, so I hope the discussions in the focus group that fed into the report will help others.” 

Sabina, from east London, was just five months old when her infected right kidney was removed, but further complications meant she was in and out of hospital throughout her childhood. Looking back, she feels that speaking to a counsellor would have been hugely beneficial.

“I was bullied at school because of my condition and I felt so isolated and alone,” she says. “So, especially for young people with kidney problems, I think counselling would be a great help.”

During her teens, Sabina’s remaining kidney began to fail, so when she was 20 she had a transplant at London’s Middlesex Hospital after her mother agreed to donate one of hers.

Sadly, her new kidney’s function began to deteriorate over time and following a life-threatening seizure in 2016, she started dialysis while waiting for a new donor.

It was while undergoing dialysis three times a week at Tottenham Hale Kidney and Diabetes Centre that Sabina was offered specialist mental health support for the very first time.

“My doctors told me I needed someone to talk to because I’d get really down,” says Sabina, now 42. “I’d seen everyone around me moving on with their lives – marrying, holidaying, having children – but my life had just stopped. I thought, ‘Why me?’ It was tough.”

Physical and emotional wellbeing

The treatment took its toll on her physical and emotional wellbeing, so the support she received came at just the right time.

“Being on dialysis is exhausting,” says Sabina. “It brings you down. It’s heartbreaking. You don’t have options. You’re living through a machine, sometimes on a daily basis. When I first started dialysis, I couldn’t do anything afterwards – I was so tired I used to pass out.”

Sabina saw her psychologist once every three weeks for just over two years and says the sessions made her feel she was being less of a burden on her loved ones.

“Although my family are understanding, they can only do so much and I didn’t want to put pressure on them,” she says.

“Sometimes it’s easier to speak to a complete stranger. Seeing a therapist allowed me a chance to just talk and let it out – or on some days, cry my eyes out.”

The sessions stopped when she had her transplant in September 2019, by which time Sabina felt able to cope without her therapist’s support.

“Everyone differs, but I didn’t really feel I wanted or needed to see anyone after my transplant,” she says. “I no longer felt how I did when I was on dialysis, when I had all these toxins in my body and was having severe mood swings and tantrums. That’s when you really need to speak to somebody.”