Ancient History

“Why are you on dialysis?”

So about five years ago, I got an infection on my foot/ankle. I stupidly picked a scab and some of the fluid/pus may have leaked into a cut. It quickly got out of control and urgent care sent me to the ER. Anyway, they ran a lot of blood tests and one of the results said my eGFR is 40-something. Nothing alarming but I should see a nephrologist (kidney specialist) for followup. For those that don’t know, eGFR is short for estimated glomerular filtration rate and can be used as an estimate for kidney function %.

This began three years of monthly doctor visits and multiple hypertension drugs while watching my eGFR drop. Once it hit 15, the doctor starting talking about dialysis and transplants. For many months it held at 12-13 but in late June of 2017, the number dropped to around 5 and my nephrologist recommended that I get an emergency chest catheter immediately. I remember the operation was scheduled for the morning of July 3rd and I started in-clinic hemodialysis on July 5th.

What caused my kidneys to fail? It was probably years of uncontrolled type-2 diabetes and hypertension. Looking back, there was also a period of depression where I didn’t feel like taking care of myself or much else. Even though I was seeing a specialist for several years before dialysis, it was probably too late to stop the trend towards ESRD (end stage renal disease).

I stayed on the “emergency” chest catheter for almost two years waiting on several live donor leads but both ended up being rejected for medical reasons. Finally my nephrologist asked me to decide on either continuing with hemodialysis but using a fistula, or switching to peritoneal dialysis. So in May of 2019, I had another catheter inserted but this time in my abdominal cavity, and removed the chest catheter.

The moral of this long post? Get your health checkup and bloodwork done! I didn’t feel anything related to kidney failure until the very end (fatigue and fluid retention).