Health
Kidney Disease...Why Waiting Hurts.
By
Feb 4, 2009, 22:32

(NC)-Mélanie is a welcoming young woman with glowing brown eyes and a jovial personality. Unlike many kidney patients who perform dialysis in a hospital for long stretches three to four times a week, she performs her own peritoneal dialysis four times a day, once while on her lunch break where she works. A virus that Mélanie contracted when she was two years old led to kidney failure. Three years later, she received a kidney transplant from a deceased donor. Now in her thirties, she's on peritoneal dialysis awaiting another transplant and she finds the waiting hard, very hard. "There are people who die waiting . personally, it's my greatest fear. Sure, I'm doing well right now. But that could change. It's already starting. I get sick more often.''

Mélanie's fear is not unfounded. Studies show that kidney failure patients are more likely to die of complications related to their disease than from renal failure itself.

"Dialysis is a treatment, not a cure," notes Dr. Copland, a kidney specialist and chair of the Kidney Foundation of Canada's Public Policy Council. "For some, the likelihood of infection or chronic inflammation is high, so is the incidence of malnutrition."

Mélanie admits that she lacks an appetite and that keeping food down is a real challenge. "Thank goodness for soda crackers!" she laughs, but her natural good humour is cut short.

She remembers life before dialysis and knows that an organ donation would make the difference. Like the Kidney Foundation, for whom she was a child spokesperson, she urges everyone to make a positive decision in support of organ donation and to share their wishes with their loved ones. "An organ donation would so change my life. Just not having to do dialysis anymore. Just that. Not having to get up at five in the morning, then do dialysis again at eleven, then again at four and again before bed. The schedule is demanding."

She recalls the first month she was back on dialysis. It was Friday, the 13th when she got a call at midnight. The hospital had a deceased donor and they needed her on-site within two hours. She awoke her husband and greatest support, Simon. She called her mother to share the news. She struggled with what it would all mean as she has a great fear of the transplant surgery itself and no memories of the one she'd undergone as a child. Then her cell phone rang while she was on the land line with her mother. The doctor was calling back to say the match was not the best fit for her. ''I was so disappointed,'' Mélanie's voice falls as she speaks. ''I couldn't get back to sleep. The whole weekend, my husband and I were depressed thinking this could have been it. I felt sick. It was so emotional.''

Mélanie lives with constant fear - of declining health, of the possible negative consequences of transplant surgery, but most of all - that the call won't come. She is well aware that the demand for organs is greater than the supply.

The Canadian Organ Replacement Register latest statistics note that there are over 4,000 Canadians waiting for a transplant and nearly 75% need a kidney. In 2006, 73 people died waiting for a kidney transplant. The wait could take as a long as 10 years and for thousands of Canadians, it hurts - physically and psychologically - which makes Mélanie's plea to make a positive decision toward organ donation all the more poignant. You can find out how you can become an organ donor at www.kidney.ca.

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