Kidneyville Cruiser to roll into state

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Kidneyville Cruiser to roll into state

09/19/2008 05:54 PM
By: Ed Scannell

PFAFFTOWN, N.C. -- A new mobile discovery and screening center is hitting the road in the Tar Heel state.

The project is funded by the National Kidney Foundation of North Carolina, a center aimed at educating people about chronic kidney disease and promoting early diagnosis.

It's called the Kidneyville Cruiser, one of only three such mobile units in the country, and it's ready to crisscross the state.

"[It's] to educate people about chronic kidney disease, make them aware of what they need to know so that they can help protect themselves from it," Leanne Skipper, of the National Kidney Foundation of North Carolina, said.

Displays in the Kidneyville Cruiser illustrate the causes of chronic kidney disease and provide medical advice to help ward off its onset.

"If you look at kidney disease, in general, there are risk factors of the high blood pressure, of diabetes, chronic cardiovascular disease, that all have an impact," Dr. Susan Massengill, pediatric nephrologist, said.

In addition to getting plenty of valuable information, people can also step inside, roll up their sleeves and get screened for chronic kidney disease.

Skipper said that test can be done in two ways: a blood test or a urinalysis.

"We take a sample, put it in a machine, it spits out a registered score," Skipper said.

Massengill calls it a silent disease, so detection during one of the earliest of five stages is important to effectively treating it.

"If we can catch them in stages two and three and make an impact on how this disease is affecting them, then we can delay the time in which they'll reach a stage five and hopefully prevent some of them from getting there," Massengill said.

Kidney transplant recipient Bill Haskins said the Kidneyville Cruiser may well prove to be a lifesaver on wheels.

"The van itself will illustrate the necessity of looking or taking care of yourself, either through diet or exercise, or whatever. But there's a tremendous amount of information inside that is so worthy of somebody taking five minutes to go through it," Haskins said. "Once they get through the doors, they're hooked."

The Kidneyville Cruiser is already scheduled for eight stops in North Carolina.

It makes its first public appearance at the Cherokee Indian Fair in Cherokee, N.C., during the first week of October.

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