Kidney Walk

This is an article about our Kidney Walk and our new Director for the Kidney Foundation.

Published Tue, Apr 27, 2010 02:00 AM
Modified Tue, Apr 27, 2010 08:26 AM
Kidney disease stalks N.C.
Ken McGee had always kept his weight to a trim 145 and tried to eat right. So he was surprised when he was struck with a rare kidney disorder in his 60s. He was more stunned to learn that chronic kidney disease affects 1 of 9 adults in the United States.

North Carolina's numbers are even worse. And the toll is mounting along with the country's burgeoning rates of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and obesity.

So McGee decided he needed to spread the word.

It hasn't been easy.

Several years ago, McGee became a greeter at the clinic where he takes overnight dialysis three times a week. McGee, now 74, also got involved with the local Kidney Walk, held for the first time in the Research Triangle Park three years ago. But even there, he said, "sometimes the turnout is pathetic," he said.

"It's not talked about," said Lauren Hood, the new director of the National Kidney Foundation's Triangle office.

Which is strange, she said, given that so many people have kidney problems or are at risk of developing them.

Blakely Hallman, communications director for the Foundation in the Carolinas, noted too that kidney disease is, in most cases, a secondary problem.

"For most patients, it's diabetes, or high blood pressure or heart disease that is the primary diagnosis," Hallman said.

In fact, there are probably millions of people who have kidney disease who don't even know it, said Celeste Lee, chief of staff for the head of the Duke University Health System. Lee had a kidney transplant and has been on dialysis for 15 years.

Lee said part of the problem is that a majority of patients with chronic kidney disease are economically disadvantaged and either aren't aware of the pressure underlying health issues put on the kidneys - or can't afford to treat them.

"The crazy thing is that once things have gotten bad enough that you're on dialysis, Medicare pays for everything," she said. "But Medicare isn't always available to people when they just need that blood pressure medicine, or the assistance managing their blood sugars."

It's a crisis management model, she said.

McGee said he was a sorry case when he was first diagnosed with kidney problems. The holes in the filtering layer of his kidneys are too large and don't do the job anymore. He's on a transplant list.

But during the darkest days after first beginning dialysis, the clinic recruited him to become a greeter, and since then he has learned that chronic kidney disease affects all too many people.

Conducting more research and helping people fight the causes are key to fighting it: those are the reason for Saturday's Kidney Walk in RTP.

McGee will be there. These days he's on oxygen for an unrelated lung issue. But he plans to get someone to pull his cart.

"It won't be pretty, but I hope to finish," he said.