Katherine Schneider of Airdrie says she didn't always get along with her mom Shara Lee Scheider.

The 28-year-old single mother of two young boys says, like many people, she and her mother had a contentious relationship when she was young.  But starting to have kids of her own changed all that.  "When my first son was born, I made the decision to move past everything that had happened in my childhood and we were working toward becoming closer."

That's why her mom's death at age 51 earlier this year was so difficult to deal with and why Schneider has decided to walk on her own in the 2018 Kidney March, a journey that she planned to take with her mom before her untimely passing.

This morning (September 7) Schneider set out with 400 other marchers to make the three-day trek from Kananaskis Country to Calgary in the Kidney March.  Kidney donors, recipients, people awaiting transplants, those on dialysis, their family and friends plus doctors, nurses and social workers are taking part in the walk this year, adding to the $6 million total that's been raised since 2010.

Schneider said her mother's journey with kidney disease started shortly after the birth of her second son.

"My mother started experiencing black dots in her vision and she went to the doctor who told her she had high blood pressure.  She got medication and they investigated further and she found out she had high blood pressure because her kidneys were in decline."

After some months of meeting with doctors and nutritionists Shara, who was also a type two diabetic, was told that if she got her health and diabetes under control and lost weight, the kidney decline should stop and she'd be able to live her life.  However, in October 2015, her kidney function declined to 15 percent and she went into kidney failure and started on dialysis which she remained on until she received a kidney transplant, given to her by Katherine's aunt, in August 2016.

"She bounced back really well from her kidney transplant," explains Katherine.  However, her recovery was short-lived.  "At Christmas In 2016 my mom had her first congestive heart failure so she had a heart attack.  But the first time it happened, she actually didn't realize.  We just thought it was the flu.  It happened again a few weeks later and my dad took her to the hospital.  They told us it was a really good thing he brought her in because she was actually in heart failure, and this was the second time."

After more doses of medication, Shara had to undergo open heart surgery in May 2017.  Her hospital stay was to last three weeks but stretched to ten.  After finally being released from the hospital for a week she fell when she lost consciousness and had to return to the hospital for four more weeks.

A few days after Christmas 2017, Shara was re-admitted to the hospital.  This time she was diagnosed as having sepsis as the result of a toxic build-up of potassium from the fact her kidney was failing again.  On January 19th, 2018 Shara Lee Schneider passed away from a combination of heart failure, kidney failure, and lung failure.  She was nine days past her 51st birthday. 

Katherine says her mom's death has been tough on her family.

"It's been hard.  I really miss her.  No one annoyed me more than she did but I miss having her to talk to, like visiting.  My boys still ask me all the time, I miss Grandma, what do you think Grandma's doing, and stuff like that.  I used to talk to her every day, or every other day.  She had a really special connection with my seven-year-old."

Katherine says she's doing the Kidney March on her own this year but was supposed to do it with her mom as a celebration.  "As a celebration of her being better and well enough to lose weight and train and be able to do this walk.  To me, it's a celebration of my mom and my relationship, the struggles we went through to get to where we were and I want to honour her memory and care about the things she cared about because the Kidney Foundation meant a lot to her.  It's really just carrying on in her memory and her spirit and doing on my own what we should have done together."

Katherine had set a goal to raise $2,200 for the march.  She has already surpassed that goal but if you'd like to donate to her cause you can do it here.

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