Organ and tissue donation week: Angie's story
After 2 kidney transplants she is now focused on raising awareness of Kidney disease
Angie Shannon from Blairgowrie has suffered from kidney failure since childhood due to reflux and chronic infections. In 2002 she found herself on dialysis to keep her alive. However, she was handed a lifeline in October 2002 when her mum stepped forward and donated her kidney.
After a rough start, her new kidney came good and allowed her to return to a normal life.
However, tragedy struck in 2015 when Angie was informed that her Kidney had failed.
After receiving the heart-breaking news she had to make a return to dialysis. Her dining room was converted into a home dialysis clinic to allow her to live as normal a life as possible.
Unfortunately, the bad news didn't stop there. After going through a screening process to find out if her husband Paul could donate, a kidney stone was found, meaning, despite being a match he was un-able to donate his kidney.
After receiving yet another blow, Angie turned to Facebook to make an appeal to find a potential donor. The appeal was posted to the page she uses to chart her journey.
She told us the idea behind charting her journey, saying: "The idea was to share with others the things that I was going through and the things that renal patients in general and patients waiting on organs go through.
"And also for me to look back. It help's to look back and see just how far I've come."
Her Facebook appeal was picked up by Tay FM in August 2016 and her interview was posted online.
Thanks to this, less than two weeks later, a woman from Newcastle named Michelle reached out to offer her kidney to Angie.
Fortune was finally on her side as Michelle was a perfect match and Angie received her second transplant successfully in January 2017.
Since then Angie has been able to live a normal life and is dedicating time to raising awareness for kidney disease and organ donation.
She told us why organ donation week is so important, saying: "it encourages conversations, it allows people to talk about things and to get it out in the open so everyone knows what their loved one's would want if the time ever came."
She also added: "a lot of people don't talk about organ donation and I think it's probably because to think about donating an organ for most people will be after they've gone and people don't tend to like to talk about death.
"During organ donation week it's our chance to encourage people to have a conversation and chat to their loved ones."