Staff and regular patients can usually set their watches when they spot the young woman taking her place on the wooden bench in the hospital passage’€¦Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, at 9.30am Chesna Cupido takes her seat against in the wall of the bustling passage outside Ward E13 – the hemodialysis ward.

Inside patients are lying under white sheets, a thin tube connecting them to a massive machine with a computer screen. Some stare into space, others stare at the television of which the sound has been muted, others sleep.

Staff scurries up and down, laughing and chatting loudly, patients shuffle past the ward staring quietly into space. Cupido, a slight woman, with jet-black shoulder-length hair is today immersed in a sms exchange on her phone’€¦earphones dangling from her ears. She’€™s oblivious to the organized chaos around her, the music helping her to cut off and wait for the clock to strike 11 when she will also be connected to the lifesaving dialyzer machine.

It’€™s been a long road to get to this point. Suffering her first bout of kidney disease 19 years ago, ill health, exhaustion and pain has become part of her daily reality, but she’€™s clear that it’€™s her children that motivate her to return to Groote Schuur time and time again.

It’€™s been a year since she was approved to join the hospital’€™s hemodiaslysis programme ‘€“ one of only 60 patients who can access this life-saving intervention at a time.

‘€œWhen I was a child, I always had a sore throat and puffy eyes. My mom eventually took me to Red Cross and they phoned her afterwards ordering her to bring me in immediately if she still wanted to see me alive,’€ Cupido says quietly.

The young girl was diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome ‘€“ best defined as a collection of symptoms caused by many diseases that ultimately affect the kidneys.

She was put on medication, but warned that she would need a kidney transplant in future. Medicine and feeling unwell became part of her every day existence.

‘€œAfter a few years I just felt that nothing was helping, I lost faith in doctors and in the medicine and I decided to stop my medication,’€ says the 28-year-old mother of two.

Not surprisingly Cupido’€™s health deteriorated rapidly and she was told she needed a transplant.

‘€œThey told me I needed a transplant, but they turned me down for dialysis because I had stopped my medication. I was not seen as a good candidate,’€ she recalls.

Cupido again started her medication and it was during this time that she gave birth to Tylo, now eight.

Shortly after giving birth to her youngest Tyra, doctors told her that her condition was now serious.

‘€œLast year they found me unconscious in the house and rushed me to hospital. Both kidneys had failed and I was approved for dialysis.

‘€œI think the first time they turned me down I wasn’€™t devastated, I didn’€™t want to be on dialysis. I didn’€™t realize the seriousness of the situation and that it was the only chance I had to stay alive. Now I realize how important it is,’€ says Cupido.

She believes her children are miracles. ‘€œThey told me I could never have children, but I proved them wrong twice,’€ she says, he face breaking into a wide smile.

Unable to work, Cupido visits the dialysis ward three days a week, for over four hours. She is one of 73 patients on this hemodialysis programme.

Only able to consume 750ml of liquid a day, including liquid in fruit and other food stuffs, Cupido says she has stopped resisting the strict guidelines and is used to watching her diet.

‘€œThere was a time when I wanted to give up. When I told my family that I was tired of fighting, that I can’€™t fight anymore. But then I see my two children and I know I have to keep going.

‘€œSome days I ask why the kidney can’€™t arrive now and I get really scared when the phone rings and it’€™s an unknown number. I’€™m always waiting for that call from the hospital,’€ she says.

Cupido’€™s face clouds over when asked if she is scared of dying. ‘€œSix people have died including a close friend who I met in the wards. I went to say good-bye.

‘€œAnother patient died on Monday. Sometimes it’€™s the waiting that makes you tired, but you can’€™t resist, you have to just trust and believe,’€ she says.

For now, Cupido’€™s only hope is the machine and the promise of a kidney donor.