Chapter 14: Why take away my hope
March 7th 2007 18:12
I was on dialysis eight years. It was starting to take a toll on me emotionally. There was so much I wanted to do. I was excepted into the journalism program at Kent State, but to finish my degree I was told I had to go to the main campus.
I took an introduction to journalism at Kent State Trumbull Branch. I loved it. The professor helped a few students including me start an on campus paper. The campus had not had a paper in three years before that. We learned page maker. It took hours to do each issue but it was quite satisfying to see my stories in printed. I was the Entertainment Editor and business Editor collecting ads to run in each issue. Things were getting exhausting with studying, working on the paper and going to dialysis three days a week.
The graft in my arm was more difficult to stick than my fistula. It felt like getting stung by a bee twice. I could not do any home work, so at least I got to watch a little TV. I was talking to new patients and telling them some of the positive things about dialysis like the rest you get there, it takes off weight (fluid), you feel better than you did before dialysis, you have more energy because the EPO they give you. I would also just try to get them to laugh by sitting there with a smile on my face singing along to MTV and telling jokes.
My body learned to function fin with a low blood pressure and low blood count. It was funny when I got my blood work done at the local hospital instead of Cleveland. Most of the time when they got the results back they would be amazed I was still standing up let lone doing all the things I was doing with school. The top number of my blood pressure ran about 70. It would often drop to 60 or less during treatments. I would just tell someone I felt a little light headed and sure enough my blood pressure was crashing.
The lowest it was without me passing out was 33 over nothing. Everyone joked about it being the lowest I had ever gone and I would never beat that. They shouldn't have said that. A few weeks later I had alergic reaction to a medication and after dialysis I walk into the bathroom and passed out. I done remember them carrying me out and resticking me. I just woke up upside down and I said, I guess I beat me record.
On my yearly checkup at Cleveland Clinic I received devastating news three days before Christmas. The Doctor that I was doing well with my treatments. Other than my having no kidney function everything else was fine. My potassium was impressive. Most Dialysis patients had a very high potassium. Mine was in the good range because I just didn not eat any foods with high potassium like potatoes, yogurt, most fruit. I ate a lot of pasta that seemed to be safe depending on what kind of sauce you put on it. Well, a Fellow who was very new to the hospital that a needed to hear something I might not want to hear. She said, You know you will never get another kidney because you have to many antibodies. She should have just shot me. You never take hope from a patient. I cried for days even though part of me new she was right.
I went on. I just did not know what to do with my life. Should I still stay in the journalism program? I could not finish without going to the main campus. Should I change to another major? Most of the things I was interested in had to be finished at the main campus. I took a grammar punctuation test for the college of journalism and did not pass. I took it more than once and did not quite pass by only two points. But I was told you could take the test until you paased it.
Maybe my high school counselor was right. I shouldn't be in college. I shouldn't be working so had. But I knew I was not going to just get married. Why put a guy through all the stuff I was going through. It was bad enough my family had to deal with my medical problems...So much went through my mind every day.
I decided nothing was going to stop me moving forward in my life. I was going to look into going to the main campus. I looked into the closest dialysis unit. There was one in Akron I could go to. I could take a patient shuttle to and from my treatments. Maybe it could work out. I could finish my degree. It would be difficult. My mom was worried about me being so far away. What if something happened on dialysis? But I was tired of thinking about all the bad things that could maybe happen. I was starting to get excited about life again.
Then we got one of those early morning calls that I thought I would never get again. They had a kidney that I could possible match. My mom drove me straight to Cleveland. I was a perfect match. Within hours I was in surgery. The kidney worked right away. The hardest thing was having to go pee so often. My bladder was not use to holding so much urine. But I got use to it.
I was suppose to wait 6 months before going back to school,but the next semester at Kent Trumbull started one month before that. I signed up for one class to get back in the swing of things. I also went to see Fleetwood Mac for their reunion tour courtesy of Kelly Stevens and WHOT radio. I was exhaust and my head was still a little cloudy from the high doses of anti-rejection medications I was on, but I was moving forward in life.
I took an introduction to journalism at Kent State Trumbull Branch. I loved it. The professor helped a few students including me start an on campus paper. The campus had not had a paper in three years before that. We learned page maker. It took hours to do each issue but it was quite satisfying to see my stories in printed. I was the Entertainment Editor and business Editor collecting ads to run in each issue. Things were getting exhausting with studying, working on the paper and going to dialysis three days a week.
The graft in my arm was more difficult to stick than my fistula. It felt like getting stung by a bee twice. I could not do any home work, so at least I got to watch a little TV. I was talking to new patients and telling them some of the positive things about dialysis like the rest you get there, it takes off weight (fluid), you feel better than you did before dialysis, you have more energy because the EPO they give you. I would also just try to get them to laugh by sitting there with a smile on my face singing along to MTV and telling jokes.
My body learned to function fin with a low blood pressure and low blood count. It was funny when I got my blood work done at the local hospital instead of Cleveland. Most of the time when they got the results back they would be amazed I was still standing up let lone doing all the things I was doing with school. The top number of my blood pressure ran about 70. It would often drop to 60 or less during treatments. I would just tell someone I felt a little light headed and sure enough my blood pressure was crashing.
The lowest it was without me passing out was 33 over nothing. Everyone joked about it being the lowest I had ever gone and I would never beat that. They shouldn't have said that. A few weeks later I had alergic reaction to a medication and after dialysis I walk into the bathroom and passed out. I done remember them carrying me out and resticking me. I just woke up upside down and I said, I guess I beat me record.
On my yearly checkup at Cleveland Clinic I received devastating news three days before Christmas. The Doctor that I was doing well with my treatments. Other than my having no kidney function everything else was fine. My potassium was impressive. Most Dialysis patients had a very high potassium. Mine was in the good range because I just didn not eat any foods with high potassium like potatoes, yogurt, most fruit. I ate a lot of pasta that seemed to be safe depending on what kind of sauce you put on it. Well, a Fellow who was very new to the hospital that a needed to hear something I might not want to hear. She said, You know you will never get another kidney because you have to many antibodies. She should have just shot me. You never take hope from a patient. I cried for days even though part of me new she was right.
I went on. I just did not know what to do with my life. Should I still stay in the journalism program? I could not finish without going to the main campus. Should I change to another major? Most of the things I was interested in had to be finished at the main campus. I took a grammar punctuation test for the college of journalism and did not pass. I took it more than once and did not quite pass by only two points. But I was told you could take the test until you paased it.
Maybe my high school counselor was right. I shouldn't be in college. I shouldn't be working so had. But I knew I was not going to just get married. Why put a guy through all the stuff I was going through. It was bad enough my family had to deal with my medical problems...So much went through my mind every day.
I decided nothing was going to stop me moving forward in my life. I was going to look into going to the main campus. I looked into the closest dialysis unit. There was one in Akron I could go to. I could take a patient shuttle to and from my treatments. Maybe it could work out. I could finish my degree. It would be difficult. My mom was worried about me being so far away. What if something happened on dialysis? But I was tired of thinking about all the bad things that could maybe happen. I was starting to get excited about life again.
Then we got one of those early morning calls that I thought I would never get again. They had a kidney that I could possible match. My mom drove me straight to Cleveland. I was a perfect match. Within hours I was in surgery. The kidney worked right away. The hardest thing was having to go pee so often. My bladder was not use to holding so much urine. But I got use to it.
I was suppose to wait 6 months before going back to school,but the next semester at Kent Trumbull started one month before that. I signed up for one class to get back in the swing of things. I also went to see Fleetwood Mac for their reunion tour courtesy of Kelly Stevens and WHOT radio. I was exhaust and my head was still a little cloudy from the high doses of anti-rejection medications I was on, but I was moving forward in life.
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