Rant on anything and Everything

[Joe Paul]

Hoping things will get better soon, you are in my thoughts and prayers.

[kitkatz]

It is Friday and I am still inthe ranting mood.  Work pissed me off yesterday.  It is not the kids. It is some of the adults I work with that really get me going.
 I told the big boss what was going on healthwise with me.  I do not think he even realizes how renal disease really affects me every day.  I wish he had a little more understanding about it, so when I say I will not take a case overload there is a reason behind it. So how could he know how much the new stuff is bothering me. *sigh*
 Besides we are doing district testing right now.  I HATE district testing.  Why do they make my special ed kids do it?  A test over everything they supposedly learned.  What a joke!     WE a rea ll banging our head son walls. Yes, that is the pounding sound you hear in the background.
Just get me through February and then I have three weeks off again in March.  Wish us luck in the testing. Wish me luck in keeping my sanity.  I am tieing a knot on the bottom of the rope and hanging on tight.

[Sluff]

It is Friday and I am still inthe ranting mood.  Work pissed me off yesterday.  It is not the kids. It is some of the adults I work with that really get me going.
 I told the big boss what was going on healthwise with me.  I do not think he even realizes how renal disease really affects me every day.  I wish he had a little more understanding about it, so when I say I will not take a case overload there is a reason behind it. So how could he know how much the new stuff is bothering me. *sigh*
 Besides we are doing district testing right now.  I HATE district testing.  Why do they make my special ed kids do it?  A test over everything they supposedly learned.  What a joke!     WE a rea ll banging our head son walls. Yes, that is the pounding sound you hear in the background.
Just get me through February and then I have three weeks off again in March.  Wish us luck in the testing. Wish me luck in keeping my sanity.  I am tieing a knot on the bottom of the rope and hanging on tight.

Hang in there baby!!

[nextnoel]

Rant away, Kitkatz, we can take it!  Sorry you have to deal with SO FRIGGIN' MUCH lately!  Remember, you don't have to take a day at a time - sometimes 30 seconds at a time is plenty!

You're in my prayers, and I'm rooting for you!
 

[stauffenberg]

I also did not enjoy the 'medicalization' of my life while I was on dialysis.  For every doctor's appointment, I would spend an hour travelling to the office and back and parking, then another hour sitting in the waiting room, and all that for a 15-minute appointment.  When I reflect back on my life, I have been going in and out of hospitals ever since I was 14 and have had hundreds of doctor's appointments, diagnostic tests, and clinic visits; I have spent four months in the hospital; and I was dialyzed about 1200 times taking up about 5400 hours.  For all that investment on my part, I don't think I ever had the experience of going to the doctor or the hospital with a medical problem, having it fixed, and then going home fine.  That paradigm, which for most healthy people is what medicine is all about, never ever happened for me.  Instead, I would develop a medical problem, go to dozens of doctors and have dozens of tests, and at the end of it, I would not be able to be cured and would either face a treatment which was worse than the disease or which would last forever, or would be some combination of both!  I must have cost the medical system of all the countries where I lived well over a million dollars in treatment costs, but I never got healthy from all of it.

[aharris2]

I also did not enjoy the 'medicalization' of my life while I was on dialysis.  For every doctor's appointment, I would spend an hour travelling to the office and back and parking, then another hour sitting in the waiting room, and all that for a 15-minute appointment.  When I reflect back on my life, I have been going in and out of hospitals ever since I was 14 and have had hundreds of doctor's appointments, diagnostic tests, and clinic visits; I have spent four months in the hospital; and I was dialyzed about 1200 times taking up about 5400 hours.  For all that investment on my part, I don't think I ever had the experience of going to the doctor or the hospital with a medical problem, having it fixed, and then going home fine.  That paradigm, which for most healthy people is what medicine is all about, never ever happened for me.  Instead, I would develop a medical problem, go to dozens of doctors and have dozens of tests, and at the end of it, I would not be able to be cured and would either face a treatment which was worse than the disease or which would last forever, or would be some combination of both!  I must have cost the medical system of all the countries where I lived well over a million dollars in treatment costs, but I never got healthy from all of it.

i also went through the same shyte since i was 16 yrs old, my family calls  me the "six million dollar man" because of the cost of my health(or lack thereof) to the insurance companies and such.  life can be a bitch and then you die.... just a fact of life people... my favorite saying: "Life sucks and then you... got to suck back

Rolando

[kitkatz]

Here I am again ranting onward.  I try to read the news article section a little every day and I just get madder than hell over the way kidney patients and transplant issues are discussed in the news! They make it sound like all you have to do is go to the hospital and sign up for a kidney. Hah!  The wait list is only gettin longer abnd I am only gettin older! Geez!  I have stopped reading the news articles except when I am in a pretty good mood.  I am not saying they are not good to look at, but they just piss me off so much that I take them in small doses. 
   

[Andy55]

Hi Kitkatz....Andy here....do you happen to know what the success rate (%) is with transplants...do many take for a while and then fail? Thanks!

[kitkatz]

I have no idea.  I bet Zach knows or Epoman has statistics. I am just off on a rant over here.

[Andy55]

Cool. Rant away!

[angieskidney]

Hi Kitkatz....Andy here....do you happen to know what the success rate (%) is with transplants...do many take for a while and then fail? Thanks!

Don't know the success rate as a percentage but I can tell you that not all transplants work right away and some work right away and you are peeing on the table (don't be embarrassed as that means you won't need dialysis! Woohoo!!). I hope my next one works right away! My last one worked for 11 years.

[BigSky]

Hi Kitkatz....Andy here....do you happen to know what the success rate (%) is with transplants...do many take for a while and then fail? Thanks!

It really depends on what stats you want to believe.  Seems different areas have different stats.

In general though the half of all cadaveric kidneys will fail within 10 years.   The longer one has a transplant the less likely it will fail from rejection, don't get me wrong they can still reject, but the longer one has it the more it seems many fail for other reasons other than rejection alone.

In general the average living kidney transplant half of them will still be functioning in 25 years.

At least this is what I read in an article from the Mayo Clinic a few years ago.


If I knew how to post the following here in its form I would.   But here is a link to some data about transplants, survival rates of the grafts, survival rates to surviving patients etc.

http://www.optn.org/AR2005/survival_rates.htm

[Zach]

Hi Kitkatz....Andy here....do you happen to know what the success rate (%) is with transplants...do many take for a while and then fail? Thanks!

Just remember that whenever you hear the term "half-life" it is only an estimate, not the actual time.

The problem with estimates are that when they're wrong, you rarely hear about it.  In fact, sometimes the only way you'll know is to compare a half-life figure from 2001 with that in 2006.

The following are actual numbers as listed in the link posted by BigSky:

                                                 3 Months
Deceased Donor Graft Survival           94.8%   
Living Donor Graft Survival                 97.1%
   
                                                  1 Year
Deceased Donor Graft Survival            90.6%
Living Donor Graft Survival                  95.1%

                                                  3 Years
Deceased Donor Graft Survival           79.8%
Living Donor Graft Survival                 87.9%

                                                  5 Years
Deceased Donor Graft Survival            68.9%
Living Donor Graft Survival                  80.2%
 

3 Years = 2000-2003
5 Years = 1998-2003

The good thing about all this, whatever the current numbers, is that improvements are always occurring!

[Andy55]

Thank you all for the transplant info 

[kitkatz]

Here I am again Ranting ever onward!

I hate dialysis.
I can't even type it properly.
I hate the time it takes out from my life.
I hate the pain it inflicts on my family.
I hate the time it took from my kids.
I hate the pain it gives me each time.
I hate it has taken a piece of my soul with it.
I hate every thing about it tonight.
Tomorrow I will go again.
Put up with it.
Do it to live.
Crap!