At the Edge of What Comes Next

There’s a version of this story I’ve been carrying quietly for a long time. It’s the one where I would say, “someday, this will matter more,” and then move on. I’ve always known I have autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, APKD, but for most of my life it sat in the background. It felt distant, something I could acknowledge and plan around in theory without letting it shape how I lived day to day. That distance is gone now. I’ve reached the point where a transplant is no longer a future possibility but the next step. Not today, not in an emergency sense, but close enough that it’s changing how I think about time, movement, and what comes next.

What’s made that shift real isn’t just what’s ahead, but what’s already here. APKD isn’t invisible, at least not from the inside. My kidneys are enlarged to the point that they’re described as being the size of footballs, and I feel that in a very physical way. It’s pressure, it’s weight, and it’s part of the extra weight I carry every day in a way that most people would never realize just by looking at me. There’s a chronic ache that comes and goes, sometimes easy to ignore and sometimes impossible to. Kidney stones show up as sharp interruptions that reset everything for a while, and there are moments that are harder to predict, like a cyst rupturing and suddenly there’s blood where there shouldn’t be, or an infection that knocks me out of rhythm for days. It’s not constant suffering, and it’s not something most people around me would notice, but it is always there in the background, shaping small decisions, setting limits, and reminding me that my body is working harder than it should.

That’s part of where Ruff has mattered more than I realized at first. There have been moments where stepping into Ruff has felt like stepping out of that weight, even if only temporarily. Not in a way that ignores what’s happening, but in a way that gives me space from it. It shifts the focus away from what my body is doing and toward connection, play, presence, and something lighter. Sometimes it’s been a way to escape stress, sometimes it’s helped me move through pain, and sometimes it’s simply been a reminder that joy is still available to me even when my body feels heavy. Ruff didn’t take any of this away, but he has changed how I carry it.

At the same time, so much of my life has been built around movement. Airports feel familiar in a way that is almost grounding now, and cities like London have shifted from being big trips to places I return to. Some of the most meaningful moments in my life recently have come from stepping into spaces where people I once only knew through a screen are suddenly real, standing in front of me, part of my world in a tangible way. That sense of recognition and belonging, whether it happens in Atlanta, London, or somewhere new, has become a core part of how I experience connection. Ruff isn’t separate from that. He’s how I move through those spaces more openly and honestly, and how I’ve built relationships that stretch across cities and continents.

That’s also why the idea of what comes next feels complicated. Dialysis doesn’t take that life away, but it does change the shape of it. It introduces structure that isn’t flexible and anchors you to a schedule that has to come first. Travel becomes something you plan carefully around treatment instead of something you flow into. Spontaneity becomes logistics. Connection takes more effort to reach. I’m not there yet, but I’m close enough to understand what that shift will mean, and I’m still learning how to sit with that without stepping out of my life ahead of time.

I want to be clear about something, because I’ve thought a lot about how to share this. I’m not posting this as a call for help, and I’m not in a place where everything is falling apart. This is not a crisis post, and I’m not directly asking for a donor. I’m sharing it because it’s real, because it’s part of my life now in a way it wasn’t before, and because I don’t want it to sit in the background unspoken anymore. If someone reads this and finds themselves curious about what this process looks like or what being a donor actually involves, I’m open to those conversations. There’s no expectation attached to that, just openness.

More than anything, this moment has brought a kind of clarity I didn’t expect. It’s made me more intentional about how I spend my time, who I prioritize, and where I choose to show up. It’s reinforced that the connections I’ve been building are not something to put on pause, but something to lean into while I can move through them the way I do now. I still want to travel. I still want to meet people where they are. I still want to step into spaces and feel that quiet recognition of “you’re here too.” That doesn’t disappear just because things are getting harder. If anything, it becomes more important.

There will be a next phase to this, and I know it will come with more constraints and harder moments. I’m not naïve about that. But I’m also not stepping out of my life before I have to. Right now, I’m still here, still moving, still choosing connection even with the knowledge of what’s ahead. I’m learning how to hold both things at once, the reality of what’s coming and the life I’m still actively living, and that feels like the most honest version of this story I can share.

—Ruff 🐾