They leave the old kidneys in.
One of the topics in the next Compass will be Lithium and Irreversible Kidney Damage. This is the T-Shirt I made up and wore after my April 1, 2011 Kidney Transplant. My daughter Sarah donated her left kidney which now resides in my lower right foot. I mean, abdomen.
Most psychiatrists turn a blind eye to the potential damage to the kidneys. Hey! We can't live without our kidneys.
My kidney transplant surgeon - Radi Zaki, MD, of Einstein Medical Center - said, "We're seeing it more and more."
Yes, b/c people like me had been on the drug 15 or more years.
Fortunately, loss of kidney function - known by the scary name "end-stage renal failure" - doesn't happen to most people - I think Kay Jamison is still on it - but it did happen to me and Denis Hazam (and a man in his support group), and Sharon Piercy, RN.
I spoke to Denis this morning from his workplace in downtown Philly.
He's leaving work at 1 pm today to go to Thomas Jefferson Hospital for dialysis.
When he was there on Tuesday, the day of the 5.8 magnitude Earthquake, they evacuated the dialysis unit.
It took a long time to unhook everyone.
I asked about the people in the unit.
They're very passive, he said. They don't ask questions, they don't seem to care about things.
This is how you feel when you are very ill.
He said many of the dialysis patients who were led outside during the quake did not return for the rest of their session.
Grueling, hard-to-take dialysis. This is why I would rather fly to the Afterlife than go on the machine.
Denis is optimistic, tho, he'll get another chance for a transplant.
He had one 6 years ago, after being on The List only one year.
The cadaverous kidney of a 24-yo man was flown all the way from Washington State to Jefferson, one of the top transplant units in Philly.
"I was lucky," said Denis. "I was third on the list, but the other two people were not prepared, so I got the kidney."
It lasted all of 6 years. His body began to reject it so he's on dialysis for the very first time.
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My son Dan said to me: Mom, the idea of getting you a new website was so your homepage wouldn't go on forever. Now, it's longer than it was before!
Well, I figgered out how to do that NEED HELP WITH YOUR MEDS? Click here.
PEOPLE OF THE MIDWEST
Cleveland, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Detroit
Lincoln, Kansas City, Cincinnati, and Twinsburg
The people of the Midwest know
the importance of Life,
uncorrupted by big money
or shiny autos with fancy insignias.
Have you ever seen a Cadillac truck?
Not in Cleveland you won't.
We Midwesterners with our long lazy drawls
love people more than things.
Sure do.
We live in houses with porches
and sometimes we even paint the porches
gray or yellow or white.
We're Midwesterners for life,
wherever we go!
Duty commands us to sit outside
and chat with our neighbors.
Have you ever seen one of our great
wraparound porches?
We sit out there in the day
shaded from the sun
Or in the evening when the moon comes 'round.
Light me up in moonbeams!
Climb up the stairs and sit beside me sometime.
I'll put out one of those
plastic stacking chairs
on sale
at the CVS
just for you!
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