By Cynthia Flash

Contributed

Jamie Bailey has always faced health issues but she carries with her a sunny disposition.

“I feel like I’ve been happy and positive from the start, since I was born,” she says. “My mom said the first time she saw me I was smiling and she felt I told her, ‘Everything is going to be okay.’”

Bailey, who is 33 and a 2000 Bothell High School graduate, spent much of her childhood in hospitals. She underwent more than 40 surgeries to repair myriad birth defects. One kidney was removed when she was 5 years old and her remaining kidney failed when she was 20. That led her to start dialysis for three to four hours a treatment, three times a week at Northwest Kidney Centers’ Kirkland clinic. Dialysis treatments use a machine to remove body waste and extra fluid when the kidneys can no longer do that job.

Kidney failure is a growing problem because, in addition to congenital causes such as Bailey experienced, it can also stem from diabetes and high blood pressure, which are big public health challenges today.

Although dialysis makes time demands and carries side effects that were challenging at first. Bailey says she enjoys the “family” she has found in the staff and other patients at the dialysis center.

“The first time I dialyzed it was scary and I did get sick but they helped me right away. They helped me feel very comfortable even though you’re uncomfortable,” she says.

Over time her experience improved.

“It was honestly a wonderful experience because everybody was so helpful and very kind,” she says. “It made it really easy. I would come to dialysis straight from work at Starbucks and everyone would say, ‘Where are my lattes?’”

Once she was familiar with the routine in a dialysis center, she eventually tried dialysis at home with her mother Julie Nichols helping.

During 2006, she received a kidney transplant, which gave her a break from kidney machines. The transplant lasted nearly five years but then failed. Back on dialysis now, Bailey hopes to reactivate her spot on the waitlist for another kidney transplant after undergoing a necessary surgery.

Bailey likes to travel and sets up dialysis treatments in advance at other centers on the road. She works as a nanny (with help from her mother) to a friend’s active 1- and 5-year-old boys.

She will attend the Northwest Kidney Centers’ Breakfast of Hope at the Westin Seattle on May 14. The breakfast will raise money to support transplant services and charity care.

She hopes she can educate others about kidney disease and persuade them to talk to their doctors about it during the breakfast. Screening tests are easy, inexpensive and important for people at increased risk.

Northwest Kidney Centers’ website offers information about kidney disease, diagnosis, treatment, classes and recipes for easy and delicious dishes. It’s also the place to sign up for the Breakfast of Hope. Visit www.nwkidney.org.