Nick Angell, now 45, was in his thirties when he went from feeling 'a bit rough' to planning his own funeral within days. After weeks of cramping, fatigue, breathlessness, and a bloated face, he was sent home from a work meeting and later diagnosed with IgA nephropathy, an autoimmune disease causing kidney failure with no known cause or cure.
His kidneys were working at only 4% function, and he was critically ill. One of his first actions was to visit a funeral director with his wife Kate, showing her where paperwork for pensions, bonuses, and death-in-service benefits was kept. 'To me it was logical, but looking back, I don't know why I put her through all that,' he says.
From running to renal failure
Nick, a father of three and an IT professional, had been running four or five times a week before his diagnosis. 'I had been running four or five times a week. When it got harder, I put it down to age. Never in a million years did I think my kidneys were to blame,' he recalls. He described the diagnosis as 'like being parachuted into a war zone.'
He was quickly placed on peritoneal dialysis (PD), which he could do at home, allowing him to return to work and travel with a portable machine. Fourteen months after falling ill, a kidney became available from a 60-year-old woman who died from a head injury following a car incident. After the transplant, Nick felt 'like I was 18 years old again.'
Rejection and hospital dialysis
The improvement lasted two and a half years before his body rejected the transplant, leaving him with 8% kidney function. He now undergoes hospital dialysis for 15 hours a week, which he describes as draining and a strain on his heart and body. The hardest part was telling his daughters—Ellie, now 22, Lily, 16, and Ruby, nine—that they would have 'knackered Dad' again.
Nick explains that he cannot attend sports days or school plays if they fall on dialysis days, and he feels guilty for the version of himself his youngest daughter sees. His wife Kate bears much of the burden, as he leaves at 6.30am three days a week for dialysis, and he acknowledges that she sometimes feels like a single parent.
Living with restrictions and waiting
Nick's life is governed by strict dietary and fluid limits: he avoids chocolate except on dialysis days, dairy, and processed foods, and can only consume one litre of fluid per day. Even simple tasks like walking, climbing stairs, or gardening are exhausting.
He is one of an estimated 7.2 million people in the UK with chronic kidney disease, and 50% of them are unaware they have it. According to Kidney Research UK, about 3.25 million have moderate to severe later-stage disease, and more than 70,000 are being treated for kidney failure. Nick is also one of around 7,000 people on the UK waiting list for a kidney transplant, and six people die every week while waiting.
Despite the challenges, Nick remains optimistic. He brings biscuits and cakes to the kidney ward, talks openly with his daughters, and focuses on making memories, such as a weekend in Paris with Kate and seeing Oasis with Ellie. 'You've got two choices. You either let it run you over, or you keep going,' he says. He avoids fixating on death, telling himself, 'I could walk out tomorrow and get hit by a bus. So there is no point in fixating on something that might not happen anytime soon.'
