I have lived with polycystic kidney disease for more than 20 years, always knowing that I might eventually reach this point. Now, with my kidney function down to about 14 percent, I am getting close to needing a transplant.
I am hoping to find a living kidney donor before I need to start dialysis. If that is possible, it would give me the chance to move directly to transplant and, hopefully, get back to a healthier and more normal life with Ben and Elliott.
It is not easy to ask for something like this, and I am very aware of how much I am asking. But I also know that the person who might be able to help could be someone I would never reach on my own. So I am sharing my story, and I am deeply grateful to anyone who takes the time to read it, share it, or simply help it travel a little farther.
A bit about me
I grew up in Tweedside, a tiny rural community near Harvey in southwestern New Brunswick. I was the youngest of three boys and spent much of my childhood outdoors riding bikes, climbing trees and wandering around the countryside. That instinct to explore never really went away. Travel, adventure and being outside have always been a big part of my life.
My father had polycystic kidney disease, or PKD. Because it can be inherited, each of his children had a 50 percent chance of having it.
PKD causes fluid-filled cysts to grow throughout the kidneys. Over time, those cysts can enlarge the kidneys and damage healthy kidney tissue, gradually reducing how well the kidneys work. For some people, including my dad, my brother and now me, it eventually leads to kidney failure.
I was tested as a child and told I was in the clear. For years, that felt a bit like winning the lottery.
It turned out I hadn’t.
When I was 22 and backpacking in New Zealand, an unrelated medical appointment revealed that I had many cysts on my kidneys. My childhood “all clear” had been wrong. Like my older brother Steven, I had inherited PKD from our father.
At that point in my life, I was travelling through New Zealand and Australia, picking up odd jobs, hiking, skiing and generally saying yes to whatever came along. I knew PKD would be part of my life from then on, but I did not want it to make me afraid of living it.
Two years later, in 2007, I set out from Victoria on my bicycle and headed east across Canada. About 100 days and 7,550 kilometres later, I reached St. John’s, Newfoundland. I called the ride Bike Canada For Kidney. Along the way, I raised more than $26,000 for the Kidney Foundation and talked with people across the country about PKD, kidney disease and organ donation.
These days, my adventures are generally closer to home. I live in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley with my husband, Ben, and our 11-year-old son, Elliott. Over the past ten years, we’ve built a small homestead here with fruit trees, grapevines, and gardens. I still love cycling, paddling, hiking, camping, skiing, road trips, cooking and finding new places to explore, especially when I can do those things with my family.
My best days are pretty ordinary ones: working outside, paddling a canoe, hiking a trail, shooting hoops with Elliott, camping beside a lake and coming in tired at the end of the day for the right reasons. That’s the life I want to get back to.
Polycystic kidney disease in my family
Kidney disease has been part of my life since I was a kid. My dad’s kidneys failed when he was 39, and he started dialysis in 1991. A year later, his sister Nancy donated one of her kidneys to him. That kidney gave Dad more than two decades before he eventually received a second transplant in 2015. I’m still in awe of what Nancy did for him, and for all of us.
My brother Steven inherited PKD too. His kidneys eventually failed, and he has been on dialysis since 2021. He had hoped to receive a transplant, but finding a suitable kidney proved difficult. Then, in 2025, he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. Because of the cancer, a transplant is no longer an option for him.
I grew up seeing what a transplant gave my father, and I have seen what years of dialysis have meant for my brother. Now I am approaching kidney failure myself.
As kidney function drops, the kidneys become less able to filter waste and extra fluid from the blood, and to keep things like electrolytes, blood pressure and red blood cell production in balance. Eventually they can’t do enough of that on their own, and dialysis or a transplant is needed to stay alive.
Most of the time, I still look reasonably healthy, so it is not always obvious how much has changed. My kidney function is now about 14 percent. I tire much more easily than I used to, I have less strength and stamina, and I sometimes struggle with brain fog. I have also lost a considerable amount of weight and muscle. From the outside, I may not look very different, but physically I am not the person I was even a couple of years ago.
What a transplant would mean
What I want from a transplant isn’t anything particularly grand. First, I want my strength back. I’d love to feel strong in my body again and get back to some of the things that have always made me happiest: mountain biking, downhill skiing and disappearing into the backcountry with a canoe and camping gear.
I want to be able to work outside for an afternoon without calculating how much energy I have left, or make plans with my family without wondering whether I’ll be well enough to follow through with them.
If my health allows it after transplant, I’d also like to start coaching basketball. As Elliott has become more involved in the game, I’ve found myself wanting to coach and work with young players.
Mostly, though, I’d just like to get back to being myself without kidney disease increasingly deciding what I can and can’t do.
What happens next
There are two ways I could eventually receive a kidney transplant: from a living donor or from a deceased donor. If neither happens before my kidneys can no longer keep me healthy, I will need dialysis while I wait.
A living-donor transplant
This is the outcome I am hoping for. If a suitable donor is found and approved, the transplant can be planned for the appropriate time and may allow me to receive a kidney before I ever need dialysis.
A kidney from a living donor generally has better outcomes than one from a deceased donor, and the donor does not need to be related to me.
My blood group is B, but blood type is only one part of compatibility. I don’t want anyone to assume they can’t donate based on blood type alone. The transplant team determines that.
Canada’s Kidney Paired Donation program can also sometimes help when someone wants to donate but is not directly compatible with their intended recipient.
A deceased-donor transplant
If I don’t find a suitable living donor, the other possibility is a kidney from someone who has died. I’ve been told that the estimated wait for someone with my blood group is currently around four to five years. That’s an estimate, not a guarantee, and the actual wait could be shorter or longer.
My kidneys are unlikely to keep working well enough for me to wait that long without dialysis.
Dialysis while I wait
Unless I receive a transplant first, dialysis is likely somewhere ahead of me. Exactly when it begins will depend on my symptoms, bloodwork and overall condition, not just one kidney-function number.
Dialysis would keep me alive while I wait for a transplant, but it would also become a major part of our family’s life. Depending on the type, dialysis could mean several treatments a week in a unit or treatment at home. That is one of the main reasons I am hoping to find a living donor before I reach that point.
Someone you can contact privately
Asking for help does not come particularly naturally to me, and searching publicly for a kidney donor is certainly not something I ever expected to be doing.
Thankfully, my friends Andrew and Alexis Lister, whom I’ve known most of my life, have offered to help as my Living Donor Champions. They are helping me share my story and are available to answer general questions about the search.
If you’re curious, you do not have to come to me and announce that you’re thinking about giving me a kidney. You can contact Andrew or Alexis, ask questions and learn more.
For general questions, or if you would like to help share my story, you can reach them at:
Andrew and Alexis Lister
Living Donor Champions
kidneyinfofordavid@gmail.com
They manage this email themselves. I do not have access to it, and they will not tell me you have contacted them unless you specifically ask them to.
Anything involving your own eligibility, health, testing or the actual donation process goes directly through Lisa, the Living Donor Coordinator. Andrew and Alexis do not screen donors, collect medical information or act as intermediaries with the transplant program.
How you can help
The biggest thing I need right now is simply to get this story beyond the people I already know. If you are willing, please share this page with friends or family, send it to someone you think might be interested, or share it at work or in your community.
The person who might eventually donate a kidney to me does not have to be someone I already know. It could be a friend of a friend, someone I worked with years ago, somebody who remembers Bike Canada for Kidney, someone elsewhere in Canada, or a person I’ve never met who happens to see this because someone else shared it.
And if living donation is something you’ve ever wondered about, you can simply learn more. Learning about donation is not agreeing to donate. A potential donor can get information and begin the screening process before deciding whether donation is right for them.
The donor screening process is confidential, and potential donors are carefully assessed to make sure donation is medically appropriate for them. A potential donor can also decide not to proceed at any point. I won’t receive their private medical information or be told why someone doesn’t continue.
If you are considering donation
If you are curious about whether living kidney donation might be possible for you, the first step is to contact the living donor program directly. You do not need to live in Nova Scotia to be considered, and eligible expenses such as travel, accommodation and some lost income may be reimbursed through Nova Scotia’s living donor expense program.
Lisa
Living Donor Coordinator
Multi-Organ Transplant Program, Nova Scotia Health
902-473-5501
You can tell her you are calling to ask about potentially donating a kidney for David Watson.
Calling does not commit you to anything. You can ask questions, learn how the process works and, if you decide you would like to explore it further, begin the screening process.
Potential donors need to contact Lisa themselves. The process is confidential, and neither I nor Andrew or Alexis can begin it on someone else’s behalf.
If donating isn’t something you can do, sharing this page is still a meaningful way to help. I have no idea how far this story will travel or where it might eventually lead.
For now, I am simply grateful that you took the time to read it.
And if you want to know a little more about the bike ride I mentioned above, I recently wrote about that too: www.davidwatson.ca/blog/bike-canada-for-kidney/