Life had been good to Andrew Freeman until he reached his 30s. The 55-year-old from Wimbledon had enjoyed successful roles in sales and events before kidney disease shattered his financial stability and ended his career.
After discovering he had type 1 diabetes when he was 30 Andrew was able to manage his blood sugars well for two decades before a usual check-up showed something unusual about his kidney function. Being asked for multiple tests without an explanation confused him, but he carried on with life as usual and waited for the results.
“Because I wasn’t receiving any information about why I was being tested, I just got on with it,” Andrew said. “I was asked to come in for a blood test and then would proceed to wait six weeks only to be asked for yet another test! My health started to deteriorate. I started to feel really tired and had issues eating. I got to the point where I needed my wife to come to my local hospital with me because I was so incoherent that I couldn’t understand what the diabetic doctors were saying to me.”
Eventually Andrew was asked to speak to the renal team at his local hospital. He was told he was in kidney failure and needed emergency dialysis. He initially did not take well to his treatment and was recommended to dialyse at home which he hoped would still give him a sense of freedom.
Charity Kidney Research UK estimate that in London alone there are around 643,000 people currently living with kidney disease of which, 289,000 are estimated to be living with the most severe stages (3-5).
Kidney patients require many hospital appointments and invasive treatments that take time out of their day – kidney disease costs the NHS £6.4billion every year and impacts productivity too.
When Andrew was diagnosed with the condition, his numerous appointments caused tension between him and his employer. He was starting to realise that he could not keep working in this environment, as his current position was put under threat and therefore and went self-employed, still working within the sales industry.
In 2019, Andrew thought his luck had changed when he was offered a life-changing transplant. Unfortunately, a transplant is not a simple procedure and can come with my complications, something he became all too familiar with.
“I went in for the transplant in April 2019, hoping that I was going to get my life back, but I ended up staying in hospital until September as I battled three separate bouts of sepsis while in hospital, but I had been given a second chance at life. I wanted to seize it and make the most of life after transplant.
“I had enough savings to get me through but then the pandemic hit, I lost all my clients and that’s when my financial situation started to get scary. I had to support my wife and new-born son, but I wasn’t able to get the support I needed.”
By this point Andrew was in need of state benefits to help the family through this rough patch but was told because he was self-employed and hadn’t paid enough National Insurance, so he wasn’t eligible. The family continued to struggle after the pandemic. When applying for jobs Andrew was upfront about his condition and the fact that he had major surgeries and rarely made it past the first interview.
Now Andrew is determined to help others who find themselves in the same position he was in. He believes that if he was diagnosed earlier, he wouldn’t have found himself in such a turbulent financial situation, which is why he is supporting our call for the government to prioritise kidney disease and earlier diagnosis.
“I wanted work with Kidney Research UK because employers don’t understand the challenges that kidney patients face both physically and financially. I hope that the report can bring to light the impact that this disease has on the health service as well as the whole UK economy. Many patients need support like I did but are unfortunately let down all too often.”
