Hello my name is James

I found out I had kidney disease in May 2006, when I collapsed at work with stroke like symptoms, massive headache, slurred speech, temporary amnesia, blindness in my right eye, numbness in my right arm, and my right leg was totally immobilized. A co-worker helped me to the coffee room while someone else called for an ambulance. I had my blood sugar checked first while I was still in the coffee room then I was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Once there they put me in a bed in the emergency ward. I'll never forget ho the nurses face change when she looked up at my blood pressure monitor. By that point most of my symptoms had abated I had been talking to the nurse about highschool as I found out we had booth gone to the same highschool. So she went from looking happy and full of life to just totally blanched and quiet, she immediately grabbed a manually operated cuff and checked my blood pressure again I was 230/125 when she rechecked the monitor over my bed was accurate. I think she was more upset than I was, she immediately got the on duty doctor over to my bed he decided that it was best I be sent for a ct scan and that I somehow had a stroke. The scan of course showed no signs of damage leaving the doctor perplexed so he had blood work drawn, urine samples and some other scans. He gave me a pill for my blood pressure and had me checked into the neurology ward were I found out that I had kidney disease he told me my creatinine was 210 giving me a GFR of 20, he told me I had kidney disease and there was no treatment to reverse the damage. They continued doing tests on my brain function for another day to be sure no permanant damage had occurred. I wound up staying in the hospital for three days until my blood pressure had calmed down enough that the internal specialist I had been referred to (Dr. Stephen Duke) felt it was safe for me to go home.
While all this was happening I was part of an organization that was bringing the 2007 BMX world championship to Victoria and the day I was released from the hospital there was a media and public open house. After the meet and greet one of the local television stations had me and friend race at the BMX track while he filmed it for a promotional shot.
After meeting Dr. Duke, and doing a couple of follow ups at his office he sent me to a Nephrologist Dr. Chris Jones, upon meeting me for the first time he suggested that I have a kidney biopsy to determine what the cause for my kidney disease was. He told me that it was likely they wouldn't find much as my hypertension was the likely cause for my kidney damage but it would rule out any infections or diseases that may be the culprits, and would also help in determining what treatment to give. My biopsy was scheduled for June 6, 2006 I'll never for get that date. When I had my biopsy done they wound up having to take four samples as the person taking could recognize any kidney cell in the samples. The first two samples didn't hurt at all it was exactly as described to me however the third and fourth samples something went wrong I think, they must have hit a nerve or something on the third attempt the pain shot from my kidney to my bladder, and on the fourth sample the pain shot down from my kidney to my bladder then to my hip (I can't remember which side they took the samples from). After the biopsy I was taken to surgical daycare. I wasn't able to urinate after the procedure, the nurses were quite concerned about this and performed an ultrasound on my bladder, it was quite full holding about 1 litre of fluid so they asked me to try going to wash room one more time and I couldn't, so it was decided I need a catheter, it turned out the ultrasound was right I had 1 litre (just over 1us quart) of fluid in my bladder. A doctor visited me in surgical daycare the next day, and asked me if I was in any pain, I said I was in some discomfort but nothing compared to the pain I felt during the biopsy. He had me go for a ct scan as he could understand what was blocking my bladder. The scan showed that I had a hematoma of the perirific sac or simply put I was bleeding internally, when they did my blood work my hemoglobin was 104, they then said they would wait a few hours to see if the bleeding had stopped and take more blood work, the new blood work showed my hemoglobin at 105 and it was determined the bleeding had ceased, and that I wouldn't need a transfusion.
So I was on blood pressure pills from the hospital, while I really wasn't thinking about what was happening to me otherwise I guess you could say I was living in denial. I eventually started working full time again and racing bmx at first I was really good about taking my pills, but one race weekend I forgot to take my pills with me and I was able to compete much stronger. I continued not taking pills on race days as it made me more competitive and resuming my pills after the weekend was over. I was able to qualify for the world championship in the 30 and over mens class and early this season I was winning races again doing the same stupid not taking my pills during races thing again. Well you can probably imagine what happened at the end of May of this year, I wound up passing out at after spending the whole day nauseated not even being Able to keep water down, so when I collapsed my father took me to the hospital. When I had arrived in the emergency ward I told them I had kidney disease, so they took my blood work and checked me into the renal unit, when they came back with my blood work my GFR was 8 and they said I was severely dehydrated so they gave me trace elements. During my period of denial I had also not maintained contact with my nephrologist so I had to have a perm cath installed when I had gone to the hospital.
Over the months between when the catheter was installed and October it had stopped functioning well, so on October 11 it was replaced. Later in October I saw a vascular surgeon Dr Keuchler for pre-op for a fistula, partly because of my age and because of the problems I had been having with my catheter he put a rush on my surgery, I just had my fistula last Thursday the eight of November. I opted for sedation and everything went well. Now I just have to wait for the fistula to mature.
I am now 30 years old and at the time I found out I had kidney disease I was 28.