I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on December 27, 2008, 07:27:29 PM
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Hoping for a kidney
◆ Looking for a donor
BY CHARLYN FINN
Published:
Wednesday, December 24, 2008 6:19 AM CST
Melissa Hall, 37-year-old Port Lavaca resident, was born with a defective kidney and since the 1980s she has been in and out of hospitals for temporary fixes.
On March 27, 2006, Melissa’s sister, Michelle Blevins, 35, donated one of her kidneys to save her sister’s life. There were complications, and Melissa lost that kidney replacement on July 4, 2006.
Since, Melissa has been on dialysis and waiting and hoping that a Positive O donor will step forward and donate a kidney.
“Some people think dialysis is nothing, you just sit there in a chair,” Melissa said. “But it is quite a lot. All of your blood is taken out, circulated and then put back. Dialysis is very draining and exhausting. I was terrified to go in there after I lost the kidney.”
She also notes that she is grateful for dialysis because it is keeping her alive.
“I feel blessed I have been able to be on dialysis and do things with my family,” Melissa said.
Melissa is married to Lloyd Hall and the mother of Steffa, 18, and Meggan, 17.
Twelve years ago a doctor projected Melissa had seven more years to live. She has survived that projection by five years. She turned 37 on Dec. 12, 2008. She is alive today to enjoy Christmas, one of her favorite times of the year.
Melissa says she and her family plan to open presents on Christmas day and then they will go to their deer lease in Yorktown. “We have travel trailers there,” she explained. “I just hang out and watch television. I get to be the bum. My family does the hunting.”
Despite the uncertainties in her life, Melissa sets goals.
“I would love to be able to take my youngest daughter Meggan and my nephew Preston Jowers, age 7 to Disneyland in California. My goal is to get my family to Disney.”
Melissa’s problem began at birth when doctors told her parents, John and Signa Gregurek, that Melissa had a deformed right kidney. Doctors said the kidney “would fix itself.” The kidney did fix itself enough so that she had minimum problems until the 1980s.
Then Melissa began experiencing kidney related pains. The doctors early on were not able to figure out why.
In 1995, Melissa was diagnosed with an interstitial kidney problem that was neither bacterial nor viral. This is an inherited condition that causes cysts to form in the kidney and affects the interstitium. Melissa does not know where she inherited the condition because no member of her immediate family has this disease.
Melissa at one point weighed only 100 pounds. “I could not get out of bed to eat,” she said. “I hurt so bad I could not get up. We found a doctor in San Antonio who started treating me. I was in and out of University Hospital in San Antonio.”
On Sept. 26, 1996, Melissa had her right kidney and bladder removed. The surgeons replaced these organs with what is known as an Indiana Pouch. This is a bladder made from the patient’s intestines. It is a surgically-created urinary diversion used to provide a way for the body to store and eliminate urine.
For two years after this procedure Melissa said she had no problems. Then, in December 1999, problems occurred and the doctor had to remove the pouch. She was given a urostomy. Urostomy is one of a number of surgical procedures that detour, or divert, urine away from a diseased or defective bladder.
This procedure worked up to 2001 when Melissa passed a quarter-sized stone. She then became a patient of Dr. L. Lane Gober of Victoria, a nephrologist. He decided at some point in the near future, Melissa would need dialysis.
Two AV grafts, venous catheters, were placed on Melissa’s left arm. They were not successful so they were placed on her right leg.
In October 2003 Melissa started dialysis at Memorial Medical Center.
“Everything was fine for a year,” she said. “Then the AV grafts on my leg clotted. Fourteen “declot” procedures were done at Citizens Medical Center in Victoria and then at Detar, also in Victoria. Finally, new AV grafts were put on Melissa’s left leg. This was successful until March 2006. At this time Melissa’s sister, Michelle Blevins, donated the kidney which was successful for only a few months.
She went back on dialysis and is hoping that she will get a replacement.
In 2008 she was in a coma April through June. She had to be hospitalized for a staph infection in her leg for three weeks. Doctors had to cut out pieces of the graft on her left leg.
In monetary terms, considering the medical treatment, time spent in motels, travel and child care during the medical procedures, Melissa estimated it cost about half a million dollars. Fortunately her husband had insurance and when she started dialysis she became eligible for Medicare disability.
But a life cannot be measured in terms of dollars.
Melissa cannot join the workforce due to her illness. “We struggle because I cannot work, but no more than any other family on one income,” she said.
Melissa is back on dialysis and is hoping that she will get a replacement.
“I am at the point where whatever happens, just happens,” said Melissa.
http://www.portlavacawave.com/articles/2008/12/26/news/doc495221add31e2186301470.txt