I started dialysis in 1988, when I was 23. I had had a baby in 1982, with lots of complications that ended up overloading my kidneys.
In the summer of 1988 I had been getting really nauseous and vomiting at work, but I thought it was the flu since I felt better in air-conditioning. When I couldn't even hold down water, I went to the doctor and was told that I needed to start dialysis as soon as possible. After getting a graft (OW!) I started dialysis a week later. It was a real nightmare-- crashing, cramping, vomiting. I got a transplant from my mother, but it only lasted 3 years. Then I was on PD for 3 years, but after a lot of peritonitis, I had to go back to hemo. I have been on in-center hemo for the past ten years.
I have outlived almost all of the patients I started hemo with... with a death rate of about 21 percent per year, you'd figure everyone should be dead in five or six years, but here I am!
(You might also remember me from the Dialysis Online website... my name there is Mars)