This is Rubi, 7 years old and the apparent, boss of our house. Rubi is bright, funny, amazing, feisty, strong and stoic. On the morning of Wednesday 26th April 2017, she woke and crawled into bed with mummy for morning snuggles. A trip to the doctor turned into an emergency admission to the local children's hospital. From this moment Rubi's, her brothers and our family life would be changed in ways we could never have imagined. Rubi has been diagnosed with FSGS (Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis). This is a rare condition which causes the filters in her kidneys to become permanently scarred and stop working. The outlook for Rubi is very uncertain. There is no cure for FSGS, only ways to try and alleviate the symptoms, slow down the damage and hopefully, hopefully achieve remission which lasts. She may not respond to treatment at all, and the outcome for most children diagnosed with this condition, at some stage in their lives, is complete kidney failure. This means there is a huge chance she will need dialysis and a transplant in the future. FSGS can come back after transplant. After an initial run of steroids to try and achieve remission, the doctors can now confirm that Rubi is steroid resistant and we move onto the next phase which is immuno-suppressants. Her kidneys are still functioning normally just now, which is a good sign and one that we hope continues for as long as possible, but we know that at some point it’s likely this will change. What we don’t know is if that change will start next week, next month, next year, 5 years, 10 years…
Over the last few weeks, the future for our family has changed. We don’t know if we’ll be able to do all the things we hoped for and dreamed of, we don’t know what kind of a life Rubi will lead and what path this condition will take our family down. We will try to remain positive, do normal family things and do everything we can to give Rubi and her brothers the best experiences we can while we are able to. We’ll post updates on the page of how things are going and how Rubi is doing. We want to share our story so that when Rubi is older we can show her all of this, let friends and family know how we're all doing, and also to raise awareness for what is a rare condition without a known cause or treatment.
