My Ray of Hope

I've cried buckets of tears the day I've found out about my father's end stage renal disease.

I knew that either we'll have the kidney transplantation or it's a lifetime of dialysis for my dad.

My mind was tired trying to figure out how to raise a million pesos for the kidney transplant. I even thought of selling our house.

With kidney transplant still an unreachable goal - I focused my attention on how to stretch our budget to accomodate my father's dialysis and medications.

I surfed the internet looking for information about dialysis.

I've learned that there are two kinds of dialysis - peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis.

I'll explain the difference between the two in my next post.

It occured to me that peritoneal dialysis might be cheaper than hemodialysis because it's a procedure that can be done at home and can be performed by a trained member of the family. Unlike hemodialysis which is done either in a hospital or clinical facilities with doctors and nurses. And since I'm a medical technologist, I would be qualified to do peritoneal dialysis for my dad.

We talked to my aunt about our decision to have peritoneal dialysis and since she's a physician she talked to some of her surgeon friends if anyone of them can perform the operation of putting a peritoneal catheter for my dad for free. My good aunt even told us that she's going to help us with all of my father's expenses.

What Is An End Stage Renal Disease?

An End Stage Renal Disease is an illness wherein the kidneys have loss its ability fo perform its normal function. It can no longer filter the blood that pass through the kidneys and excrete the toxins through the urine out of the body.

My dad had an end stage renal disease as a complication of his hypertension. Other conditions that may lead to chronic renal failure are:

Diabetic Nephropathy - diabetes can cause permanent damage to the kidney

Lupus - a chronic autoimmune disease

A prolonged urinary tract obstruction

Some of the symptoms of a chronic renal failure:

1. Poor Appetite *

2. Vomiting

3. Increase in Urine Output or no urine output

4. Shortness of Breath*

5. Recurrent Urinary Tract Infection*

6. Edema or Tissue Swelling *

7. Headache

8. Muscle Pain

9. Fatigue *

10. Irritability*

11. Bad Breath*

12. Urinary Incontinence

13. Insomnia

Those with asterisks are some of the sypmtoms that my dad exhibited when he was diagnosed with an endstage renal disease.

Some of the Laboratory Tests requested for him are:

1. Blood Tests - which includes Complete Blood Count, Electrolytes, Creatinine, Urea

2. Nuclear Glomerulus Filtration Rate

3. Urinalysis
4. Renal or Kidney Ultrasound

An End Stage Renal Disease can be treated only with a kidney transplantation while dialysis is the procedure done to rid the blood of toxins which under normal circumstances are eliminated by the kidneys.

Why I Started This Blog

My father had kidney transplantation three years ago. At the onset of his end stage renal disease, we (his immediete family) viewed it as a great burden.

I remember how heavy my heart was when I heard for the first time that he was suffering from an end stage renal disease and would require a lifetime of dialysis. My immediete reaction was how are we going to finance his dialysis and other medications. If we won't be able to sustain his treatments he would die.

Papa is now our only parent after my mom died of breast cancer over a decade ago. I couldn't bear the thought of losing another loved ones.

But our greatest burden turn to our greatest blessing! It was an extraordinary journey for our family that we wish to share with other people experiencing the same situation we had few years ago with the hope that they will find inspiration from our story.