So there are conditions to be met to get on a transplant list. Exclusion criteria and absolute exclusion criteria. Absolute exclusion criteria includes; active malignancy; chronic lung disease; significant or reversible cardiac disease; tobacco use in the setting of diabetes mellitus, coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease and chronic lung disease; incarceration; noncompliance ( skipping dialysis, not taking meds, etc ); BMI (body mass index) greater than 45. I passed theses tests -yay!!! Lol. I sent back my signed forms and will now wait. Brian is going to see if he can be donor, so we'll set that up and see. Oh yeah, good thing the kidney failure caused me to stop smoking, but that's kinda circular, isn't it.
A question I never answered was , "Pat, what caused your kidneys to fail?". Well let's step back years or decades with my father's side of the family. My dad's brother got sick and he failed pretty quickly. This was in the 60s. "Can This Be Real", The Natural Four. It's hard to not sing loud (and badly) with the earbuds on - I'd disturb the entire module, patients and staff - lol. Kidney failure prior to about 1968 was basically a death sentence. So yeah my uncle died. A few years later, one of my dads cousins had kidney failure, but he got a kidney from his sister. Incidentally, this was in the late 60s. Said sister is still going, baking her legendary rolls. :) And my aunt who seems to get sick when I get sick, even though we are 300 miles apart, had her kidneys fail when my failed (!). She really didn't have to do that :-( In addition, dad told me of cousins who died young, when he was younger.
What we all have in common is acute intermittent porphyria. The disease runs in my father's family, but you don't know you have it until the symptoms beat you on the head. There may be tests now, I don't know, but the family is aware of the symptoms. Kidney failure isn't always indicated with acute intermittent porphyria, but apparently it is in my family. So there you have it, how Pats kidneys failed.
Links to my article at KidneyBuzz, and a full body photo of me "doing" dialysis. Signing off with "Standing on the Top", The Temptations featuring Rick James. Rick James :-D.
That's really interesting to know. I guess even though my mom had kidney disease, I just always assumed that it came from diabetes. Thanks so much for all the info and insight into kidney disease. This is something close to home for me and this blog really helps me. Stay strong, my sister. But then again, you already are.
ReplyDeleteDiabetes and hypertension can cause kidney failure. There are also hereditary kidney diseases that cause kidney failure....in addition to injuries to the kidney.
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