“You’ve got to get to the Emergency Room at Saint Joseph’s Hospital immediately; your kidneys aren’t working,” my doctor told me over the telephone. I had managed to keep away from doctors for the better part of 30 years, but my number was clearly up. Earlier that day, 3 February 2000—the day after Ground Hog Day—she found my blood pressure was way high (240/128) and sent me on my way with a prescription for medicine to lower it. Two-and-a-half hours later I got The Call That Changed My Life.
I didn’t feel all that bad. I had the flu that had been going around that fall and winter and subsequently developed pneumonia and a cough I couldn’t get rid of. I was wheezing so bad at night my wife, Karen, complained that I was wheezing louder than she was snoring and it was keeping her up. So I had to go to the doctor. I spent all those years avoiding doctors and hospitals because my parents died very young—I saw loved ones go in but they never came back out. Besides, I never got sick; maybe a cold every five years or so. The first several hours in Saint Joseph’s Hospital were spent drastically lowering my blood pressure. It was done so quickly that I could have stroked out, and it left me feeling exhausted and terrible. I was so weak I couldn’t hold my head up.
The CT scan showed only one kidney. Was I born with only a single kidney (subsequently I found out that five percent of the population is) or did a virus get it. My existing kidney—which is supposed to be about the size of my fist—is about the size of a walnut. I still felt so bad I was completely disconnected from my body. My kidneys aren’t working. Okay, get them jump started and let me out of here. But of course it doesn’t work that way.
On 4 February 2000 I had a kidney biopsy and got the diagnosis: End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), cause: unknown. Actually, for mostly political reasons, my initial diagnosis was Pre-End-Stage Renal Disease until I began treatment. It didn’t matter. All I heard was End-Stage. I figured my number really was up and I had been handed a death sentence. I don’t remember anything else that happened that day.
A day later, 5 February 2000 I was discharged from Saint Joseph’s and given the prognosis: renal disease is chronic and there is no cure. The good news is that the disease is treatable and I had two-and-a-half options: start dialysis and optionally get evaluated for a transplant or die. I guess that’s really one-and-a-half options, but by the time I got home I was moaning for my wife and friends to call Kvorkian.
Later, the nephrologist admitted he had no idea what caused my kidney disease. “It’s like driving past a house that has been burned to the ground,” he said. “Was the fire caused by electrical problems, kids playing with matches, or a gas leak?” Did my high blood pressure cause the kidney failure? Not likely because my heart and vascular system checked out fine. More likely the kidney failure was causing my high blood pressure.
At any rate I had the name for my weblog. Stay tuned….
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