Getting closer to a new kidney

Getting closer to a new kidney

By: Meg Hibbert
Posted: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 10:12 am

Every time the phone rings at Bob Johnson's house these days, he gets his hopes up.

On Oct. 29 a call came he'd been waiting for – almost. The 62-year-old dialysis patient is waiting for a kidney. The phone call from the University of Virginia Medical Center told him there was a potential organ available, but then, another call brought bad news. The kidney wasn't healthy enough for him.

Johnson isn't discouraged.

"They called, so that lets me know how high on the transplant list I am," said Johnson, who has been on two separate lists for two years. "They said they're ready for me if I'm ready for them."

He is on the lists in Charlottesville and Fairfax where he and his wife, Janet, formerly lived. "They told me the average waiting time was five to seven years," he said.

He's a kidney ambassador for the National Kidney Foundation. Until last December, he was a tractor-trailer driver when his company laid him off. Johnson said he had no warning his kidneys were failing when he went in for a Department of Transportation-required physical three years ago last month. Although he was diabetic and had recently gone on insulin, he didn't know his kidneys were shutting down, Johnson said.

His doctor – who has also since retired to Salem – told him his creatine levels were getting worse and he needed to be hospitalized immediately, without even driving himself home.

High creatine levels can indicate a problem in the body, such as low kidney function. Creatine is excreted by the kidneys.

"That was a Thursday. I was in Lewis-Gale Medical Center for five days, having immediate dialysis," Johnson remembered. "At that point, I knew I was sick."

By that time, he had no energy, couldn't keep food down and was itching all over.

Since then, he's been going to overnight dialysis three times a week, and he feels good. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, evenings when most people in Salem are sitting down to dinner or just getting up from the table, Johnson is getting hooked up to dialysis machines at Friendship Manor. He spends the time from about 7:15 p.m. to 3:15 a.m. watching television or sleeping while his blood is cleansed of the toxins his kidneys can no longer remove for him.

"There are about 10 or so other people there at the same time I am," he said. They've gotten to know each other, and cheer each time one moves up on the transplant list. They also cry for each other's families when patients' bodies wear out before they can get kidney transplants.

"There have been four people on nocturnal dialysis since I've been there, two years in September," Johnson said.

Although nocturnal dialysis might not appeal to everyone, he's a firm believer in the benefits from having his blood cleansed at night.

"The nice thing is that during nocturnal dialysis, they take off the same amount of fluid in eight hours as the people who go for four hours during the day," Johnson explained, "and there's no stress on the body."

He went on to say people who undergo the shorter dialysis, "feel weak and their blood pressure drops."

Johnson takes care of himself, and watches his diet, as dialysis patients need to do.

"I stay away from any high high potassium foods, like tomatoes, potatoes and bananas," he said, and also doesn't eat cheese or milk. "We found out that if you soak potatoes in water for 2 hours, the soaking leaches out most of the potassium."

A nurse practitioner comes in at least once a month, as well as a physician at the dialysis center, he said, "to look over your numbers."

Last year, he was named Patient of the Year, which is what got him into the kidney ambassador program, he explained, with pride.

Despite dialysis, Johnson leads an active life. He enjoys outdoor photography, woodworking and building furniture for his family, and model railroading. HO is his preferred model railroad gauge. He also attends Transplants United of Southwest Virginia, the third Sunday at the Salem Senior Center, at 2 p.m.

"They would love to have anybody considering a transplant," Johnson said, giving the number of the contact person, Penny Baynton of Cloverdale, 992-4156.

"Or call me, if they want more information," Johnson said. His number is

378-5264.

As soon as he went on dialysis, Johnson's doctor took him off all blood pressure medicine, he said. He needed a stent put in his heart because of a 95-percent blockage that was discovered a year ago. Now he has the heart of a 20-year-old, he said his doctor told him.

The Johnsons moved to Salem in March a year ago, built a house and moved into their new neighborhood in the Woodbridge area. They bought the first lot in Roslyn Farms, section 4.

"We are loving Salem. It reminds me a lot of upstate New York, with all the lakes and mountains," said Johnson, who grew up in Glens Falls, N.Y. He and Janet have been married for 39 years. She taught sixth-grade math in Montgomery County, Md., until she retired eight years ago.

They said they chose Salem because her sister, Becky Cribb and husband Tom, live here. Becky is an occupational therapist with Carilion, and Tom is minister of a Baptist church in Christiansburg. "We've been coming for birthdays for years," Johnson said.

Their niece and nephew are Hannah, 13, who is an eighth-grader at Andrew Lewis Middle School, and Jonathan, 14, a freshman at Salem High School.

The Johnsons have two daughters, Mary and Becky payne, who lives in Northern Virginia, as well as four grandchildren.

http://ourvalley.org/news.php?viewStory=3559