For Katrina Linthwaite, kidney disease has shaped much of her adult married life.
Now a renal nurse at Mackay Base Hospital, Katrina once stood on the other side of the hospital bed, supporting her husband Gavin through kidney failure, dialysis and two life-saving transplants over more than two decades.
This World Kidney Day on Thursday 12 March, Katrina reflects on a journey that has taken her from cane farmer’s wife and carer to qualified nurse helping others facing the same diagnosis.
Life for the Koumala couple changed dramatically in 2000 when Gavin, then 28, was kicked in the back by a cow while working on the farm. The injury led doctors to discover something far more serious, an autoimmune disease called IgA nephropathy that had already reduced his kidney function to about 20 per cent.
The couple had just welcomed their first child when the diagnosis came.
“It was a real struggle for him,” Katrina said. “He didn’t take the diagnosis well at all. He became quite depressed.
“Doctors told him his kidneys were failing and dialysis would soon be necessary. Just six months later he began haemodialysis at Mackay Base Hospital twice a week, travelling 45 minutes each way from the farm for five-hour treatments.”
With a young family and a busy farm to manage, the routine was exhausting. Katrina, who was 22 and a new mum, remembers those early years as overwhelming.
“It was really hard because he was so unwell afterwards,” she said. “For a farmer to travel that far and then be wiped out for the rest of the day was tough.”
Determined to improve their quality of life, Katrina pushed for home dialysis. The couple undertook training in Townsville and installed an ultra-water filtration system to manage the property’s hard water before set up of the dialysis machine in their home.
For Gavin, who had a severe needle phobia, learning to cannulate himself was daunting. But the flexibility of dialysing at home allowed him to keep working on the farm before dialysing in the afternoon.
After two years of home dialysis, they finally received the call they had been hoping for; a kidney transplant was available. It was the third call they had received. Twice before, illness meant Gavin could not go ahead with surgery.
In November 2003, at the age of 30, he underwent a kidney transplant at Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital. By then the couple had two young children, including a six-month-old daughter. Katrina spent eight weeks in Brisbane supporting him through the operation and recovery while family cared for their son back home.
“It was frightening when the dialysis machine was taken away after the transplant,” she said.
“We were thinking, ‘What if we need it?’ But it also meant everything had gone well.”
Kidney transplants are not cures, Katrina said. Donated kidneys generally last around 15 years and recipients must take anti-rejection medication for life.
For Gavin, that prediction proved accurate. Fifteen years after the transplant he began to feel the familiar signs of kidney failure again – extreme fatigue, poor appetite and declining health.
By 2018 he was critically ill and flown to Brisbane where doctors inserted a permacath into his chest and their pre-transplant routine returned, travelling from Koumala to Mackay three times a week for dialysis. Eventually Gavin and Katrina trained again, this time in Mackay, so he could do home haemodialysis.
In August 2019 the phone rang just after midnight while Katrina and her daughters were attending a campdraft at Blue Mountain. Another kidney had become available.
“I had to get home, organise everything on the farm and we were on a flight at 6am,” she said.
Gavin received his second transplant that evening during a six-hour operation in Brisbane. This time the kidney was slow to begin functioning and he required a few dialysis sessions before it “woke up”.
Seven years on, Gavin is doing well. Their long journey with kidney disease inspired Katrina to pursue a new career.
She enrolled in nursing at CQUniversity and graduated in 2022, the same year her youngest child finished Year 12. In 2023 she secured a postgraduate position in the renal unit at Mackay Base Hospital, although her husband initially questioned the choice.
“He said, ‘Do you really want to work in renal after everything we’ve been through?’” Katrina said.
“But I wanted to give people hope and let them know someone understands what they’re going through,” she said.
Katrina believes her personal experience gives her a deeper connection with patients and families.
“I’ve been on the patient journey with Gavin and now I’m on the other side of it,” she said. “It makes me more empathetic and understanding.”
Renal disease can take a heavy emotional toll on patients and their partners, she said, with depression common among people facing organ failure and the lifestyle restrictions dialysis brings.
But Katrina also reminds patients that every journey is different.
“We’re actually the lucky ones,” she said. “Gavin’s had two transplants, he’s seen our kids grow up and he’s now got grandkids.
“I was a cane farmer’s wife who learnt a lot through our own journey,” she said. “Now I’m here working helping other people through theirs.”