Cut comes with consequences: kidney failure

[okarol]

Cut comes with consequences
Ladner man finds himself on dialysis and waiting for kidney transplant after cut turns into something much worse

Jessica Kerr, The Delta Optimist
Published: Wednesday, February 04, 2009

What started out as a small cut that became infected has turned one Ladner man's life upside down.

In 2007, Gordon Johnson had a small cut on his wrist that became infected from his hockey equipment. He said he treated it as he normally would and didn't think anything of it.

Shortly after his cut became infected Johnson said he started to feel ill.

"I just thought that I had the flu," he said, adding he went to the doctor a few times and was given antibiotics.

The symptoms, however, didn't go away and Johnson went to the doctor again. This time he was sent to Delta Hospital for some tests and sent home again.

A few hours later he got a call from the hospital telling him he had to get to Surrey Memorial Hospital immediately. His kidneys were failing.

Johnson spent almost three weeks in the hospital where doctors performed more tests to get to the root of his illness and get treatment started.

At first, he said, his kidney function improved. It went from 10 per cent to around 16 or 17 per cent.

"So, we thought we were doing OK," Johnson said.

He adhered to the strict low-protein, low- or no-sodium, low-potassium diet and went for weekly testing.

However, after a few months, his kidneys weren't improving and his doctor started talking about a transplant.

Johnson said at the time he hadn't been sick for long and didn't like the thought of undergoing a kidney transplant. He hoped his kidneys would "bounce back."

"You kind of just go along and hope it gets better and do what they say," he said.

Last May, Johnson's doctor recommended he start dialysis, a regular process in which machines hooked up to a patient perform the same blood filtering function that healthy kidneys carry out.

Johnson was recently approved for the kidney transplant waiting list.

"I was shocked to find out that the waiting list, at least for my blood type [Type O], is 10 years long," he said.

Johnson's sister, who shares the same blood type, had looked into donating one of her kidneys to her brother but her own recent health problems meant she was unable to make the donation.

Since humans can survive with only one functioning kidney, living organ donation is possible and many donors report being able to return to their normal activities once they have recovered from the surgery.

According to B.C. Transplant, there are currently more than 300 patients on the kidney transplant waiting list.

The first living organ transplant in B.C. was performed in 1976 and traditionally the live kidney donations have come from a relative of the patient. However, over the years the practice has evolved to include people who have a pre-existing relationship with the recipient and there is now a pilot project researching living anonymous donors.

For more information about organ transplants and donation, visit www.transplant.bc.ca.

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