Five nights a week for the past year, Lisa Cooper has stuck two large needles in her arm and hooked herself up to a machine that clears waste from her blood.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
She spends 40 hours a week attached to the dialysis machine, having had her home fitted out with specialised equipment and plumbing that allows her to avoid regular trips to a hospital ward for treatment.
Mrs Cooper was ill for about a year before going onto dialysis, spending months in and out of hospital after the kidney and pancreas she received in a double transplant in 2000 began to fail.
A holiday with her young family seemed out of the question until she heard about a mobile dialysis bus visiting holiday destinations around Victoria, including Phillip Island where Mrs Cooper's parents have a holiday house.
The bus was first envisaged by Traralgon kidney patient Vince Tripodi, who lobbied and raised funds for a mobile dialysis unit that would allow people needing dialysis to take a holiday.
Mr Tripodi has since passed away but his legacy lives on in the "Big Red Kidney Bus", launched by Kidney Health Australia late last year in conjunction with Monash Health.
The bus has already provided treatment to patients holidaying in Lakes Entrance and Mallacoota and is now on Phillip Island, before travelling throughout the state during 2015.
It has enabled Mrs Cooper a rare holiday with husband Troy and children Macey, 9, and Ben, 7, as she prepares to go on the waiting list for a second kidney transplant.
"To sit on the beach with mum and dad and my brother and his kids was just wonderful. We had kids on mattresses in the lounge and sleeping in the hallway," she said.
"Mum and dad often take the kids so they can have a holiday but [for Macey and Ben] to have their mum there, they just loved it. They told me, 'It's so good to have you here, Mum'."
Kidney Health Australia chief executive Anne Wilson said the availability of dialysis chairs was very limited, meaning it was often impossible for patients on dialysis to have a holiday.
"Dialysis is basically life support. If you don't get it you get very sick very quickly," she said.
Ms Wilson said the bus had been very popular with patients, including a newly married couple who took advantage of the service to have a honeymoon.
She said the bus was donated and the $160,000 fit-out mostly funded by a philanthropic trust, making it a community effort to give chronically ill patients a break.
With about 11,500 Australians on dialysis, Ms Wilson said there was no shortage of demand for the service, and her dream was to see more kidney buses on the road in other states.
