 Fact, 2.5 million, more than 2.5 million people die annually in the world from kidney disease. Fact, in the United States, 10,000 people are diagnosed annually with kidney disease and they perform an average of about 10 to 15,000 transplants a year. Fact, in Kenya, 6,000 people annually die from kidney disease and in 20 years, we've performed 1,000 transplants. In 15 years, I have had three kidney transplants and it's been a journey with lots of ups and downs but it's also taught me some crucial life lessons and I'd like to share those lessons with you here today. Lesson number one, information is your friend. When I was first diagnosed with lupus in 1997, there was no lupus specialist in the region. When my kidney started failing due to lupus, I was confused. I needed to know what was happening and through my contact of friends and family who were abroad, I got in touch with the lupus foundation of America and one kind doctor photocopied a book and mailed it to me. It was titled lupus and kidney failure and that book saved my life. In that book, it talked about what was happening, what lupus was, what kidney failure was, what the challenges were with treatment, what the protocols of treatment were out there and what the battery of tests had to go through meant. I used that book, I read that book, I lived that book. I lived that book because when you suffer from a chronic illness, you go through it on your own regardless of how many specialists or doctors are out there. It's your disease, it's you dealing with it and you need to be the expert in the room, regardless of how many specialists are there because they're telling you about your body and no one knows it better than you. It's because of understanding this that I was able to make decisions on medicines I would take, medicines I would not take. The course of treatment I wanted to take. I, for example, refused to take some key medications that are used in lupus patients for pain because the long-term side effects were not worth the short-term relief. I found alternatives and with authority, discusses alternatives with my doctors. Decisions like those helped me make tough choices to go for cutting-edge treatment when I went for my second transplant in India using stem cell research, which was not being used in the world at the time. I was not approved, rather. So information is your key. It will make you take control in a situation that seems to be spiraling very quickly out of control. Lesson number two, surround yourself with a group of warriors, people of integrity, people who will stand by you or, as my husband calls them, ride or die people. My people are divided into two. My family and my friends. My family of my rock. I would not stand here before you without them. My first transplant was donated by my father. My second by my sister. My third by my brother. They have been there for me and literally have given back my life. I hear stories of hundreds of people who are sitting on a transplant, at least with no one to donate, to have warriors. My friends set up an organization very quickly because I did not have medical insurance and was staring at humongous bills. It was called Friends of Lorna. It still exists. They found ways to raise money and over the past 15 years I actually had these numbers wrong but we've raised more than $250,000 over 20 million shillings for me to go through the transplants and to have my daily, my monthly medication which runs anywhere 30,000 shillings or in dollars, roughly about $400, $500 a month. You need those people. You need people of valor. You need people who believe in you because their days you cannot believe in anything. Lesson number three and this I think is the most powerful. You are not your situation. My disease is a story and in the words of Deepak Chopra a story, your story is exactly that. A story. You are not your story. You are the writer. You are the hero. You are the villain. You are the producer and you are the executive director but you are not your story. When you have a chronic illness people look at you and the first thing they see is illness. They define you by what they know. Refuse to be that. The first thing I learned is you become a victim. I mowed and I groaned. Why me? But the next stage was I became a survivor. I had survived this tremendous experience. And the last stage which comes along a little bit later is you need to become a conqueror because once you conquer your situation nothing and no one can stop you. And this applies for everything else in life. What have these three things taught me? They have taught me that there are two primary choices in life. You can either choose to accept conditions as they exist or accept the responsibility of changing it. Now this quote by Dr. Dennis Waitley is how I live my life. I choose to accept the responsibility of changing it. And I live my life every day with passion doing the things I love. And because of that I set goals for myself. And my next goal is to beat that number. 43 seconds. In July next year in Durban, South Africa the world transplant games will be taking place. This is the 19th edition and I will be the first person to be taking part in those games. I will be swimming and my goal is to beat that clock and to take the 50 meter butterfly record from the lady who currently holds it, who is from Australia. I do this. I do this because I believe the past 15 years have taught me a lesson that I cannot keep silent. That I need to be the change that I want to see and would like to help other people. Thank you.