I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on August 14, 2010, 02:02:45 PM
-
Nocturnal Dialysis: A stunning comeback to an elite sport
August 02, 2010
Randy Starkman
The official line on Marie-Eve Chainey in the women’s high jump read “NH” — shorthand for “No Height.” Not exactly a fitting designation for an athlete who truly soared.
There are comebacks and there are comebacks.
For some athletes at this past week’s Canadian track and field championships in Toronto, a triumphant return to form meant posting fast times after a slow season.
For Chainey, it meant returning to elite competition after a nine-year battle with kidney disease that nearly killed her several times and forced her to endure some 800 blood transfusions. Three years ago, she was unable to walk and even lacked the strength to wash her hair.
Chainey calls high jumping her “happy place.” So on the eve of the national championships, the 27-year-old from Kapuskasing was not about to be deterred by a difficult night of dialysis that left her severely hydrated.
“I couldn’t walk properly, I couldn’t talk properly, I couldn’t see properly when I got up in the morning,” said Chainey.
“But I’m very stubborn, I’m very hard-headed. Something like this I just had to find a way that I would be able to jump, no matter what.”
She’s definitely a woman on a mission.
Her objective is to create awareness of the benefits of nocturnal hemodialysis, which she says allowed her to begin training again three years ago. Chainey undergoes dialysis for eight to nine hours while she sleeps, six nights a week.
“That’s what I’m trying to be is proof that nocturnal works,” said Chainey, who attends the University of Ottawa.
“I got back my lifestyle.
“I work as a personal trainer. I train for high jump and I’m in nursing at school. I couldn’t do this if it weren’t for nocturnal.”
Chainey went to Spain when she was 18 to learn the language and continue her high jump training. When she began to put on weight, she didn’t think much of it at first, attributing it to the change in food and eating late. But she became so dizzy one day she had to be hospitalized. That’s when she got the news: Her blood platelets were sticking together and clotting her kidneys to the point they no longer worked. To this day, she’s unsure what caused it.
She hasn’t known life without dialysis since and has had to overcome four relapses and countless other obstacles, including going blind for two months.
She was told over and over she’d never jump again because her muscles were too damaged. But for Chainey, jumping is like breathing. As a 14-year-old, she would often travel from Kapuskasing to Toronto so she could train under coach Gary Lubin at York University.
“From when I got sick, the goal that I had was to just be back jumping,” she said. “Jumping was basically my happy place. Even now more so. Because I’m sick and there’s so much going on, when I go to high jump, I don’t think about anything else than just high jump and enjoying it. It is definitely my getaway. I feel normal because I don’t have to think about anything else.”
Chainey certainly felt jitters at the championships; her hands wouldn’t stop shaking once the competition began. She didn’t clear the starting height of 1.50 metres, which she had managed to get over in practice. Still, you’d be hard pressed to find a happier last-place finisher anywhere.
“Just being out there, especially when they lined us up and they introduced us to the crowd, it was a special moment that I’ll always remember,” she said. “I didn’t feel comfortable at first because I didn’t feel I belonged. But although I didn’t get a height, I still feel I belonged there. It felt awesome just to have the opportunity and experience this.”
Chainey is very involved as a peer support worker with the Kidney Foundation of Canada and works with the Shad Ireland Foundation Canada, a non-profit group committed to helping people with kidney disease. On Aug 15, it is holding runs in Ottawa to raise awareness: a 1-kilometre walk or run aimed at dialysis patients and 5K and 10K runs for others.
“Most cases of kidney disease could have been prevented with better nutrition, better physical activity, but mainly the control of diabetes and the control of blood sugar,” said Chainey.
She particularly wants to spread the word on nocturnal hemodialysis, which isn’t widely available in Canada.
She said it’s made a huge difference in her life. She used to take 32 pills a day, but is now down to seven.
“Everything is better,” she said. “I haven’t been in hospital for years, whereas before it was at least three or four times a year.
“We need more research. We need more proof.”
Chainey feels kidney disease has cured her of her perfectionism.
“I’ve always been a straight A student, always done well in sports and piano,” she said. “So when I got sick, my life wasn’t perfect anymore. I had to learn how to live with what you have, that I had limits. That was a very good lesson for me, to know that things aren’t always perfect but you can still make the best of it.
“At 18 years old and you’re so close to die so many times, it definitely gives you a different perspective on life.”
Among those not surprised by her determination is York’s Lubin, who coached two-time world championship medallist Mark Boswell as a youngster.
“She’s a classy kid,” said Lubin. “With her, it’s always everybody else first. She used to come down from Kapuskasing, a 12-hour train ride ... in order to train. When I talk to my athletes about dedication, I say, ‘Don’t tell me you came from Burlington. You think that’s far? How about Kapuskasing?’ This is the type of person she is.”
http://www.thestar.com/sports/article/842983--a-stunning-comeback-to-an-elite-sport