What I Learned When I Couldn't Ignore Polycystic Kidney Disease Anymore: An Interview with Khaiah Thomson

The After Dinner Mint is a podcast of Stories I’d Tell You at Dinner. We bring Christian women in Western Australia together through honest stories. We are interviewing all our regular contributors in Season 1 for you to get to know them better. Khaiah Thomson is a social worker and the author of the Blackwood series.In today’s episode, we explore: Turning your creative hobby into your job and finding ways to get unstuck Growing up as a pastor’s kid in the country. Khaiah believed she was a Christian, but when she moved to Perth as a teenager she wrestled with feeling alone and unloveable. God said to her, “You don’t know me.” In a time when people want to outsource discipleship of their kids, the value of growing up in a big family where she felt like it was a safe place to wrestle with all her big questions about faith and life. Working as a hospital social worker on the renal transplant team whilst also diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease. We discuss coming to terms with eventually needing a kidney transplant when she wanted to ignore it and learning to rest in the fact that God is in control.Check out the show notes for everything mentioned in the show.Check out Welcome to Blackwood, the first book in the trilogy. So fun!!About KhaiahWest Australian Author Khaiah Thomson pens the Blackwood series. The first book Welcome to Blackwood won the Hawkeye Publishing Manuscript Development Prize in 2020. Khaiah first decided to write young adult fiction novels as a way to exercise her brain while on maternity leave. She wanted to create a magical escape for young readers, all the while gently weaving in themes of God’s love through the timeless battles of good versus evil, unconditional love and the power of redemption.Khaiah lives in Perth with her husband and two sons. When she isn't working or in her home office writing, Khaiah can usually be found nose-deep in a book, gaming or at the nearest cafe, hovering close to the coffee machine. Khaiah’s Welcome to Blackwood series can be found in all good bookstores and Hawkeye Books.Want honest stories from Christian women in Western Australia in your inbox on Wednesdays? Sign up here.Music: Come Back by Ketsa. Licensed under a Creative Commons License Non-Commercial, No-Derivatives 4.0 International License.