I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: Transplant Discussion => Topic started by: rsudock on November 05, 2010, 07:57:39 PM
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I haven't been seeing very many transplant stories in this section so hopefully I am not posting in the wrong place.
As I was growing up as a child I was under developed and small for my age. I had constant nose bleeds all the time. I have always been anemic and sickly as a kid. The week before I was going to start dialysis I got a call Friday morning that a kidney had been found. The donor was a teenage girl who was killed in a car accident with her boyfriend. I remember waking up from the surgery and feeling like God does exist. I was crying and overwhelmed with joy. After I got out of the ICU the first hospital movie i watched was Steal Magnolias! lol Anyway the first couple of months were rough adjusting to the meds. Diarrhea, headaches, and nausea...blah! I was also in isolation so I was stuck at home all the time so I wouldn't catch germs. I was taking Prograf and ended up getting drug induced diabetes. That was was a real low point. Here I am having a surgery to save me from ESRD and now I have another disease!!! I was switched to Neoral and the diabetes went away after 2-3 months. (Thank you Lord) The toughest thing dealing with my transplant were the physical side effects like extra hair growth every where, weight gain, and over growth of gums. Looking back it is hard to be a teenager living in a world that puts so much emphasis on physical looks and beauty...high school sucked!
Over the next ten years I have had other issues crop up like I was having terrible stomach problems and nausea, which ultimately lead me to get my gallbladder removed. The doctor couldn't confirm or deny that the anti-rejection meds caused it. From the anti rejection meds I have high cholesterol too! When my creatinine starting climbing this past year they try to pulse me with a high dose of prednisone but I get so bloat with water retention I can't take it for long. I just choose to let the kidney runs it's course without subjecting my body to anymore high levels of anti rejection meds. Also with my polycystic kidney disease I have portal hypertension which enlarged my spleen and that is why I had to get that removed this summer. This summer surgery pushed my weak transplant kidney into renal failure. I still have the transplanted kidney so not only am I on dialysis but I am also still taking anti-rejection meds so I won't build up antibodies. The best of both worlds....not!!
xo
R
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A kindred spirit!!! I was a kid on dialysis too. We didn't even know I was sick until my body had begun to shut down due to the high levels of toxins. That was when I was 12. I was transplanted when I was 14. I actually predicted that I'd get a kidney at 14. It was the only prediction I ever got right. *L* Junior high school sucked for me, because I actually had to do dialysis at school. A lot of the kids thought I was on drugs or something, cuz I spent a lot of time in the guidance councilor's office. That's just where they had a room for me to do the exchange. I remember one kid asking me if I was pregnant cuz of the big belly that PD causes. High school was better, because I was in a bigger school of fish, and I found some close friends there who understood that I had to take all the pills and watch out for germs because of it
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Hello Riki,
Being a kid and trying to deal with this disease is horrendous...there is so much pressure to fit in and look a certain way to be considered "cool" in school! HA I got over that really quick and just let go of that trivial crap. I always felt like an adult watching all these kids in school. They never really appreciated life and just how quickly everything could be taken away....
xo,
R
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I was incredibly self conscious when I was in school. I was already overweight, and have been my entire life, and then I was on PD, with an extra 2 litres of fluid on my abdomen, making me look pregnant. Then, I also had a fistula in my wrist, and had a huge scar where the incision was. After a few rude comments about suicide attempts, I always wore long sleeved shirts.
I don't care anymore about those things. I'll show off all my scars, since I now have 2 on my arms from fistulas, one on my neck from parathyroidectomy, and a new one that can be seen when I wear a bathing suit, on my shoulder, where my central line was.