Heartbroken mother found out her son Joshua (8) had kidney failure and needed an organ transplant after being admitted to hospital with appendicitis - doctors red flag youngster as he may need dialysis soon

Mary Dolan, a mother-of-two, has been forced to give up her job to deal with her son’s diagnosis, regular hospital appointments and medication.

The 36-year-old from Enniskillen said getting a diagnosis had taken one and a half years as “doctors were putting two and two together and coming up with other things”.

“He has autism and he had been incontinent,” said Mary. “He doesn’t complain usually and will only go to the doctor when he is physically lying down.

“The diagnosis came about around a month ago when I rang the GP and he said he thought it might be his appendix”, she added.

“I said ok, but I knew in my head it wasn’t. But the GP saw him and referred him to the hospital for appendix. I was glad we were getting seen finally.

“Just to confirm things at the hospital they ran blood tests - and they came back not normal.

“Then they told me he had kidney failure and there was something not right.

“Then they ran the scan and were able to see he had only one kidney and that kidney was only 17% working”.

Mary said she was shocked at the news given she had been told “when he was born that he had two kidneys”.

“They said they did not know where the other kidney had gone,” she added,

“But there was no sign of it.

“To this day I don’t understand it. He was a healthy child other than having the pain. He is active and drinks an awful lot of water every day.

“The doctors say all the drinking of water has kept his kidney working. He was tested for diabetes twice because he was drinking so much”.

Mary said Joshua is going into Primary 5 in September and is “really looking forward to getting back”.

“Anyone who meets him would think he is a normal wee boy,” she added. “But he is not going to get better and needs a transplant.

“The hospital also found he has a heart murmur which leads to high blood pressure. The wee man is now on 15 tablets a day.”

Mary - who also has a 15-year-old son called Ruairi, said “our lives have changed with the diagnosis”.

“If Joshua gets a suitable kidney it is a bonus, bet they need to have his body right at the time and that could take six months.

“The doctors are expecting him to be on dialysis pretty soon. They don’t think he will be able to go on as he is. That is a new scary road we will have to go down at that stage.

“He is still an active boy but he has changed, you can see his energy levels have gone down. And he says to me ‘Mummy I can’t do it’”.

Mary said she launched a Gofundme page to try to alleviate financial stress on the family when they are going through this “rough patch”.

“There are some days I am on top of the world and other times I don’t think I can cope with it all,” she admitted.

“What is happening to Joshua I would take off him in a heartbeat - but I can’t. All I can do is wait.

“I have an appeal on my own Facebook page looking for a kidney donor. We don’t have a big family to get tested but it could be anyone who matches him could give him a kidney.

“It is early days yet and we are hopeful”.

See Mary’s appeal for assistance -

In this Gofundme Mary explains her recent trauma and appeals for prayers.

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