35 years on dialysis!

A woman at my dialysis clinics husband wrote this for a local newspaper:

What do the composer Mozart, U.S. President Chester A. Arthur and movie star Jean Harlow all have in common? Although they lived widely disparate lives, they shared the same fate - death from kidney failure.

Until the 1950s, when the modern kidney dialysis machine was developed, there was no remedy for end stage kidney disease. Once the kidneys shut down, uremic acid and other toxins accumulate in the body and death comes usu* alh/ within weeks.

But with modern kidney dialysis, patients with kidney failure can live relatively normal fives, as long they undergo dialysis treatments three tunes a week and observe rigorous dietary rules. At each dialysis session, afi the blood is removed from the patient's body, cleansed of toxins, and replaced, a process that today lasts for three to four hours but at one time took eight hours.

Although there is no official record of the longest surviving dialysis patient, Haskell resident Edward Strudwick, who has been in dialysis since 1971, is certainly a candidate.

What is more, Strudwick has lived an active life throughout those 35 years, working full-time and raising a family. The 66-year-old still drives himself to and from his Haskell home to Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck for his treatments.

Strudwick was diagnosed with a kidney infection when he was 31.

"I had a real bad cold and a sore throat," he recalls. "I was coughing and my wife convinced me to see my doctor. He put me in the hospital where they did all the tests and found out it was my kidneys."

At the time, Strudwick's kidneys were still functioning sufficiently for him to postpone dialysis. But within a few months of his diagnosis, his kidneys finally gave out. He was rushed to the hospital, where he entered dialysis, a life saving treatment that he has continued three times a week ever since.

"From the start I looked at it as, either do this or be under the ground. I chose to do this," he said. In 1977 Strudwick attempted a kidney transplant at New York Hospital. But the new kidney did not take. Strudwick remained in the hospital for a month, still

undergoing dialysis, until his body finally rejected the transplant and it was removed. He has never again attempted a transplant

"I didn't want to tempt fate," he said.

When he returned to his job in a steel processing plant after the transplant, he was assigned lighter work for a year or two, mostly operating a forklift. Rut as his supervisors saw what he was capable of and with the approval of his physicians, he returned to his previous job of preparing thousand pound rolls of steel wire for processing.

"My condition did not interfere

with my work," said Strudwick. "I never let it get me down. I had two daughters to raise and I just kept plugging along. I worked full-time, did a lot of overtime."

"You have to have a positive outlook on everything," he added.

Strudwick was able to maintain the flexibility to work 12-hour shifts by dialyzing at home for more than 15 years.

"I did it in a back room where we had the machine," he said. "It wasn't like a hospital room, but you made sure to keep the area clean. There was no set time when I did it The advantage of doing it at home is that you have more free--ttem. After I stopped working, I came down to Holy Name."

Before moving to Haskell, Strudwick dialyzed on a fold out cot in the kitchen of his apartment

patient

"He does exactly what we ask him to," said Rigoiosi, who has sought in vain to determine if Strudwick is the longest surviving dialysis patient in the world.

Because dialysis patents produce very litde urine, it is essential that they severely limit their intake of fluids, include fluids from food, Rigoiosi said.

Foods with high levels of salt, phosphorous or potassium are especially dangerous. Excessive potassium can be fatal to dialysis patients, Rigoiosi said.

Strong family support is another element in Strudwick's survival, Rigoiosi said, noting Strudwick's wife helped him with his home dialysis. A naturally strong constitution is another element

Strudwick worked all three shifts at the steel plant, alternating each week. When he worked a 12-hour shift, he would come home and sleep for a few hours while his wife prepared the machine.

"I would eat my dinner on the machine and get some more sleep" he said. "I would finish on the machine and half an hour later go back to work."

Vacations required arranging in advance with dialysis centers at wherever he was going.

"The only thing I couldn't do was to take a trip across the country? he said. "I would have to go to one place and then day trip from there. The first time we went to Arizona I dialyzed in Phoenix, and the day I didn't dialyze, we visited the Grand Canyon."

Dr. Robert Rigoiosi, Strud-wick's nephrologist at Holy Name, attributes his patient's survival to total compliance with the difficult regimen of a dialysis

"But we have had other people who were in excellent condition when they began," Rigoiosi said. "Compliance is the issue. There are people who make all sorts of excuses to skip treatments. Mr. Strudwick never did."

E-mail:

prosnitz@northjersey.com or call 201-646-6925.