Mum faces desperate health struggle as she waits for kidney donor

A MUM is facing a desperate health struggle as she waits for a new kidney – six years after her husband died of brain cancer.

Kerry Brown, 38, lost her other half Andy, 33, in July 2018, just six months after he was given the devastating diagnosis.

In his memory, the mum-of-three ran the London Marathon to raise money for charity.

But just three years after Andy’s passing, Kerry, from Dunfermline, Fife, also started feeling unwell.

At the end of 2021 she contracted Covid and in the new year her health seriously deteriorated.

Kerry started feeling fatigued, lost her appetite, developed tremors and after experiencing a severe nosebleed with large clots she rushed herself to A&E at Victoria Hospital in nearby Kirkcaldy.

After a series of emergency tests, medics told her she was in acute kidney failure, with just four per cent function left.

Speaking to The Scottish Sun, Kerry said: “Andy was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour. I was eight months pregnant at the time and he passed away in July 2018.

“After that we were all in complete shock. It was very traumatic.

“I had Covid in December 2021 and just never felt well after it. I was back and forth to the doctors telling them, ‘I just don’t feel right’.

“The fatigue was unbelievably debilitating. I couldn’t do anything and was so breathless.

“That went on for a couple of weeks, then I started to notice quite a bad tremor in my hands. I lost my appetite and I had a bit of fluid retention.

“I was getting worse and worse, then one day I was bathing my wee boy and had a really bad nosebleed. I had quite large clots coming out of my nose.

“I just drove myself to A&E. They asked what I thought was wrong and I was like, ‘I think I’ve got an infection, you need to check my bloods’.”

She added: “My blood pressure was through the roof. My urine had blood and protein in it and then my bloods came back showing that my kidney function was off.

“I had four per cent function. I was in complete kidney failure.”

Kerry was later diagnosed with Goodpasture’s Syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease that affects around one in a million people.

For the past two years she has been receiving gruelling rounds of dialysis three days a week.

Life was again turned upside down for the Police Scotland worker and her kids Lewis, six, Connor, 13, and Eve, 15.

Kerry is on a waiting list for a new kidney and can’t be more than four hours from Edinburgh Royal Infirmary in case she needs an emergency transplant.

She said: “You’re very restricted. You can’t really travel.

“I took them away to Turkey just after the restrictions were lifted from lockdown in 2021. But we’ve obviously not been able to go away since.”

Kerry has been trying to keep her spirits up and be there for her young family.

Her relatives have already been tested but none of them are a suitable match for a transplant.

Kerry said: “My family and friends have been amazing and so supportive, particularly my mum. Although it affects my health, it affects all my family because they’re having to do so much more.

“My mum has to come here at 6am three days a week. There’s days I can’t take the kids to school or pick them up.”

She added: “Initially it consumed me because you’ve no control over it. It’s quite difficult.

“I learned to sort of try and not let it consume me and take over.”