Running marathon with kidney disease for King's Lynn woman

Having been diagnosed with kidney disease 25 years ago, a Lynn woman will be running the London Marathon this year.

Susan Dunne has Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), a life-threatening inherited condition which causes renal kidney failure.

Both her brother and mother have already had kidney transplants within the last 10 years.

Now in her 40th year, Susan has decided to mark the milestone by running the marathon.

She will be raising funds for PKD Charity UK, and has so far raised over £450 of her £2,000 target through a Just Giving page.

“Over the past four years, I have done a couple of runs for the PKD charity, including a half marathon in Clumber Park and Dirty Double back-to-back 10k runs around the Lake District,” she said.

“This year I feel privileged to have been given one of three places in the London marathon via the PKD Charity that is so close to my kidneys!

“We never thought the call would come for my mum as she spent 10 years on dialysis before receiving the call, while my brother was only on for about nine months and both now have a new lease of freedom.”

At the moment, Susan’s Glomerular filtration rate has taken a steady decrease and currently sits at 56.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, normal results range from 90-120.

Upon being accepted as one of the three PKD runners, Susan said her reaction was a mixture of being “pleased, scared, humbled, excited and nervous all at the same time”.

According to PKD Charity, PKD kidneys can swell up to four times bigger and 100 times heavier than a normal kidney, which is the size of a fist.

The charity added that despite there being an estimated 12.5 million people with PKD worldwide, there remains no cure for the disease at present.

Susan can be sponsored at justgiving.com/susandunne40.

To mark the seventh week of her training plan, she ran 10.8 miles in one go.