Lai Lately...

When I started My Kidney and Lai, my life revolved around my dialysis and my long awaiteed NHS kidney transplant.

Today, my life looks surprisingly familiar to the one I had before I became ill. I spend my days juggling work, studying for my ACA exams, trying new hobbies, making time for friends and chasing the life I felt I missed out on during my early twenties.

Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that returning to the life I had before kidney failure meant leaving behind the life I had built during it.

After returning to work full-time, completing my commitments within the kidney community and throwing myself back into my professional exams, I decided to step back from a lot of things. In doing so, I accidentally put this blog to one side too.

I haven't wirtten, published, posted on videos on my youitube channel as much as I'd hoped but I havent' stopped caring about sharing my experience and connecting with others. So here's a space where I want to post where life has taken me.

Life Right Now.

Lately, I've been feeling burnt out.

I'm working full-time in a more senior role while continuing towards becoming a Chartered Accountant through the ICAEW ACA qualification.

In June 2026, I completed my final Professional Level exam and entered the Advanced Level.

That felt like a huge milestone.

For context, the ACA qualification has 15 exams in total.

My ACA journey

Looking at that timeline makes me emotional.

It isn't just a list of dates.

It's years of hospital appointments, dialysis exchanges, libraries, lecture recordings, revision notes, missed weekends and countless evenings spent in bed with my laptop.

Sometimes I forget just how much life has happened in those few years.

Today

It's a sunny Saturday in the UK. We're in our 3rd heatwave.

I'm sitting in Costa with a Passionfruit Mango Cooler beside me.

In a few minutes, I really should start my Strategic Business Management homework.

I'm 29 years old.

It's been 1092 days since my kidney transplant.

It would have been nice to post this on the 1000th day but that's not important and the reason why I never share anymore haha....

Since then...

I've passed 4 exams.
I moved up a grade at work, back to doing unpaid overtime.
I joined a reading club...found a loving boyfriend 6 months later!
I went on a cruise with my parents as my first holiday.
I danced through Abba Voyage with my dad.
I finally went clubbing at 27 and still endeavour to go again if I can wrangle anyone else to come with me.
I missed the Taylor Swift Eras tour, despite not being on Dialysis!
I worked a week of 18 hour days leading up to a deadline and regretted it.
I went on my first holiday without my parents and stayeed away for 7 days in Madeira.
I went back on blood pressure medication after escaping it post transplant, the little white pills started at aged 11.
I went to my first music festival this year with Lewis Capaldi headlining!
I learnt how to make home made chinese fried dumplings and milk bread.
I randomly picked up painting in 2026 after a sip and paint session at work even though I don't drink, even on Christmas Day!
I haven't listened to an audiobook in 2 years, despite having gotten through double digits in a month on dialysis.
I started running board game events during the colder months and met genuinely lovely people.
I said goodbye to friends and colleagues who have moved to other countries and escaped the corporate world.

I swam in the sea for the first time and nearly got knocked out by a wave but vowed I will go snorkelling one day!
I booked tickets to the BFI IMAX in London to watch The Odyssey.

Life is so confusing.

It's messy, unpredictable and sometimes exhausting.

Some days I still see and hear myself believing that my entire identity is work, exams and my health.

Trauma has a habit of reminding you where you've been, even when life has moved on.

Life lately feels like the life I've always aimed for. Every progress reveiw at work, every threapy session goal setting for a balanced life between Health, Work and actively making time to be social and those secret personal projects such as this website.

I'm tired of thinking my life is only work, exams and my health.
The transplant stories aren't over.

My desire to support and connect with the kidney community hasn't disappeared.

If anything, it's grown.

I've realised that My Kidney and Lai was never supposed to be only about my kidney.

It was always supposed to be about Lai.

This website is where those two stories meet.

There are no rules for what this space has to become.

Some posts will still be about transplant life, hospital appointments and everything that comes with living with a donated kidney.

Others might be about exams, baking, travelling, painting, friendships or simply trying to build a life that feels full again.

Because that's my life now.

A little bit of everything.

So today, I'm choosing to hit publish instead of waiting until I've passed every exam or reached some imaginary point where life finally slows down.

Life probably won't slow down, if anything after my exams I'm only looking for only sky rockets.

And that's okay.

My Kidney and Lai is growing with me now.

Right, enough procrastinating.

Strategic Business Management homework is waiting.

Hitting publish and starting my homework for Strategic Business Management.

See you next time

— Lai

It's a sunny saturday in June, the light is blinding but the Costa air con is refreshing...the ice in my drink has melted.