Dialysis tech now needs machines he's kept running

His turn
Dialysis tech now needs machines he's kept running
By Erica Molina Johnson / El Paso Times
Posted: 10/05/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT

Click photo to enlarge
Juan Pea sits through his 2-hour dialysis at Fresenius... (Photos by Mark Lambie / El Paso Times)

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EL PASO -- The dialysis equipment Juan Peña has spent the past 17 years maintaining is now returning the favor.

He sits patiently for several hours twice a week and waits while the machine he's connected to through a catheter in his chest removes his blood. As the blood is filtered, it is returned to his body.

The scene is similar for many El Pasoans who rely on dialysis to stay alive. But it feels a little unreal to Peña that he, too, now needs the treatment.

Peña, 44, is the area chief technician for Fresenius Medical Care, which operates four dialysis clinics in the area.

"Patients come in and I make sure there's no interruptions, that they have all the supplies and the equipment runs well," he said.

His personal journey toward using the machinery himself began last year, when he began feeling more tired than normal.

He had been diagnosed with diabetes and high blood pressure about four years before, but he hoped there wasn't a relation between those illnesses and his symptoms.

"At first, you deny it. You're like, it can't happen to me," he said. "When I started getting sick, I thought it was going to go away."

Peña visited his doctor, who referred him to a nephrologist -- a doctor specializing in diseases of the kidneys.

He told Peña that his kidneys had been damaged by his high blood pressure, high levels of calcium in his blood, and the diabetes.

His doctor said a kidney transplant was his best option.

Peña, who has an 11-year-old daughter,
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immediately started looking for a donor.

His wife was willing, but she wasn't a match.

He has a brother, but he wasn't even tested because the man has no health insurance, and Peña said no one wanted to potentially jeopardize his future health.

But Peña remained optimistic even as he added his name to an ever-growing list of people waiting for donated organs from cadavers.

He began selling possessions to pay for the costly transplant procedure as he searched for a living donor. When he sold his 1999 Ford Ranger, that drew the attention of his co-workers.

"It really hit home for us because we go through this every day, but we never see that side of it. We always assume that the patients have the resources, but when we started asking and he started sharing these things with us, we were like, 'How is he going to get the money?' " said Monica Esparza, clinical manager for Fresenius on Gateway West.

The group decided to help. Group members set up a blog through which people can follow Peña's story and donate money.

It will cost thousands of dollars for travel and hotel stays for Peña, a caretaker and the donor. After several months, less than $1,000 has been collected.

Peña slowed down his personal fundraising efforts after chances for an immediate, living donor waned.

In April, he could no longer resist dialysis.

"I didn't want to dialyze. I thought, somewhere, somehow it's going to go away -- but those toxins were just accumulating and making me feel worse and worse and worse," Peña said.

It took about three months of treatment for him to start to feel better, but his life is far from normal.

He can't play sports anymore because he gets tired easily. He dreams of what life might again be like if he gets his transplant.

"I want to go to the park and walk around for at least half an hour, not for five minutes," he said. "I don't want to be limited. I want to jump. I want to run."

He hopes his story will encourage others to be more mindful of their own health. He doesn't want anyone else to have to go through his ordeal.

"I'm not nervous. I just want to get transplanted," Peña said. "Apart from dialysis, that's what's going to give me my normal life back."

Erica Molina Johnson may be reached at emolina@elpasotimes.com; 546-6132.

To learn more
# About Juan Peña or to donate: www.comingtogetherforjuan.blogspot.com.
# About living with diabetes: the American Diabetes Association, www.diabetes.org; the Centers for"Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/diabetes; the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse, http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov.
# About dialysis:"www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/dialysis.html.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/health/ci_13484684