Last Thursday I had a routine appointment with my retina specialist in Raleigh.  (Everything checked out fine—thanks for asking!) While he was reviewing the laser photos of my eyes and shining his light in them, I decided to turn the tables on him.

“So, Doc,” I asked, “how are things going for you?”

He was silent long enough for me to begin to think I had offended him somehow.

“I see a lot of people in this office,” he finally said, still examining the images of my eyes.  “Many of them are in really bad shape.  The way I look at it, my little problems are inconsequential compared to theirs.”

I nodded.  “That’s a really good way of looking at it.  No matter how bad you’ve got it, there’s always folks who are worse off.”

On my way home, I thought about that brief snippet of conversation.  It’s really true:  you can almost always be worse off than you are now.  I’m living proof.

I suffer from End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), or kidney failure, as some of you know.  This is a chronic condition:  there is presently no cure for it.  My only hope for a somewhat normal life span is a successful organ transplant.

So how could things be worse?

To maintain my life, I undergo kidney dialysis three days a week, four hours a day, every week of my life.   The dialysis machine, or artificial kidney, filters my blood, pulling out harmful waste and excess fluid from my body that my kidneys can no longer do. 

Dr. Willem Kolff developed the first practical dialyzer in 1943, in Nazi-occupied Netherlands.  (The story of how dialysis developed and became accepted is interesting, and you can read a fairly short article on it here.)  But it wasn’t until relatively recently that the machines, technology, and financing became widely available so that no one need face an automatic death sentence any longer.  If I had been born fifty years earlier, I would have died by my fifty-fifth birthday.

For this, I am thankful.

I also suffer from Type 2 diabetes.  Again, in the not too distant past, the contraction of this disease was usually a death sentence, albeit a slower one than ESRD’s.  Fortunately, medical research into the disease and pharmaceutical solutions make living with the condition easier.  With prescription drugs and a fairly rigorous diet, my diabetes is well-controlled.

For this, I am thankful.

Unfortunately, my disease went undiagnosed until after damage had occurred to my body.  I developed a condition called diabetic retinopathy.  Before the recent development of a surgical procedure called vitrectomy, I would have lost sight first in my right eye, and then in my left.  As an avid writer and reader, if I lost my sight, it would have been tantamount to losing my life.  But thanks to the amazing skill of my retina specialist, I have 20/45 vision in both eyes.

For this, I am thankful.

It’s true, my condition still afflicts me with a variety of problems.  I need to use a cane while walking due to diabetes-induced dizziness, and my body is weak, so I can’t walk very far without pausing.  I get periodic sharp pain in my feet, also from diabetes, and due to chronic fatigue caused by my ESRD, I am unable to work, which has caused me annoyance and financial hardship.  Because of my dialysis requirements, my ability to travel is restricted and complicated.

But I’m alive and loving life, regardless.

For this, I am thankful.

 Fresenius Model 2008-H Dialyzer

Text © 2009, Kenneth M. Rhodes