Brielle's Story

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Just after her 21st birthday, Brielle Gazzara went to the hospital with kidney transplant probelms. She went home 3 months later weighing 68 pounds, hooked up to a 24 hour nutritional I.V., and back on dialysis. That was 1998. Now in 2010 Brielle has been on dialysis for 20 years and doing very well.
Since she was 14 Brielle has been on dialysis. At 15 her first kidney transplant rejected in the second month with disastrous side effects. Fortunately, through several months of self-rehabilitation and with absolute determination she began to slowly recover and move on. For the next several years the dialysis went well enough and fit in with her high school schedule, her job and her social life. By the time she was 21, the three hour dialysis sessions three times a week were just another part of her routine.

That same year Brielle's brother offered to be a kidney doner and despite the disaster six years earlier, she decided to try again in June. Sadly, this one also rejected in the second month with nearly fatal results. The next three month were spent in and out of intensive care, "crashing" twice, and transferring between three local hospitals.

Brielle continues her story:
I transferred to to third hospital for treatment of pancreas complications after the previous surgeon threatened to perform a colostomy. A nurse there later told me that she assumed I was brought there to die because I was in such bad shape. At that point I had not actually eaten anything substantial for almost 2 months and I am sure that at that time I was literally starving to death. I was quickly placed on a nutritional I.V. and started to feel much better, despite my condition.

The night before I was to be discharged with my nutritional back pack, the artery to my heart was punctured by the catheter placement. By the next morning my left lung had completely collapsed from all of the hemmorhaging blood and my heart was being pushed toward my right lung. A heart surgeon performed an emergency surgery to open up my chest and scoop out a pint of gelled blood.

When I was finally sent home at Thanksgiving I only weighed 68 pounds and was just skin and bones. I could still not eat or drink for 3 more months. I was getting all of my nutrition through a heart catheter that was permanently hooked up to an I.V. bag and pump in the back pack that I carried with me everywhere I went. I slept with it next to my bed. As I gained more strength I started to drive myself and my back pack to dialysis three days a week.
I was excited when my doctor told me in February that I could start out with hard candy. This was the first food of any kind that I had in months. I then started to have liquids, then soft food and finally regular food. It was a long drawn out process, but worth it because my pancreas recovered completely.

I finally got back in the gym in March 1999 and started working out again and taking protein shakes every day. It takes dedication, a positive attitude, and the will power to do it. I started at rock bottom and slowly worked my way up to where I am today.
Going to the gym and eating a well-balanced diet keeps me healthy and makes dialysis easier. I never feel washed out or drained after a dialysis treatment. I think that working out has a lot to do with that. I love to train shoulders and legs. I can now leg press 400 pounds. People at the gym call me "thunder mouse" because I weigh 100 pounds and can push 4 times my weight.

I had the will power to get back to where I was before the transplant and I had a lot of people praying for me every day.
If you ever feel discouraged by the events in your life remember - Never give up! Always stay positive. I know it is easier to say than to do, but when I was almost dead I really never thought that I was doing that bad.

I am 33 now in 2010. I work part-time at a sports supplement store in Columbus, Ohio, and part-time at a chiropractor's office. I still go to the the gym 4-5 nights a week.
I travel often -- the Jersey Shore in summer, California to visit my brother, Chicago and New Jersey to visit family, and recently to Las Vegas to work at the bodybuilding "Olympia" expo.
Dialysis is just one more arrangement and one more stop in a busy schedule. That's all it has to be.

Brielle