Dialysis Interview

I gave an interview yesterday regarding my dialysis experience. It was not with a new organization, but rather a student in the medical field. One of their instructors assigned a project to interview a current or prior dialysis patient. The student said they did not know anyone on dialysis so they posted a post on Reddit r/dialysis for volunteers. I actually see quite a few of these requests, from interview with medical school and bio-mechanical engineering students, to surveys regarding mental health and dialysis patient comfort. Hopefully this interest will lead to better care and improved treatment, including a functional artificial kidney.

Anyway, the interview was over Zoom (no cameras), and took about 40 minutes. Mainly it was about my experience with ESRD and dialysis, and what my pros/cons were with each type of dialysis. Even though I was not on dialysis that long compared to some other patients, I went through a lot of changes and medical procedures in the process, and can compare life before, during, and after (transplant) dialysis. Maybe I can give a decent TED talk.

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So about nine months ago, I receive a request from a ProPublica journalist for an interview about kidney transplant wait times. Like above, the request came through Reddit, probably because of my comments about my waiting experience. At the time, I agreed to an interview but wanted to be anonymous since I did not want to risk any negative out-of-context comments affecting my transplant chances. The journalist agreed but never got back to me, and I do not know what happened to her project.