From SouthernGazette, Marystown, Newfoundland, Canada, by Paul Herridge
Grand Falls-Windsor resident helping Marystown woman find kidney donor
Cynthia Faulkner truly believes she has found her calling.
When her son, Justin Bradbury, developed complications from diabetes and required kidney dialysis, there was little the Grand Fall-Windsor resident could do. He passed away last May, just a few months shy of his 41st birthday.
Ms. Faulkner said “He was too sick to even be considered for a kidney transplant.”
The loss has obviously been tough for Ms. Faulkner but it has also inspired her to help others. One of those people is Dianne Pardy of Marystown.
Ms. Faulkner and her son met Ms. Pardy at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s in January 2011.
Justin and Ms. Pardy struck up a conversation in the hallway and discovered a common bond.
Diagnosed with genetic polycystic kidney disease in 1992, slowly causing the blood purifying organs to lose their function over time, Ms. Pardy noted she was at the hospital for surgery to prepare to start dialysis as well.
“We carried on our friendship from there on.”
Over time, Ms. Faulkner said she and her son grew close to Ms. Pardy, often offering words of encouragement to one another. When Justin required open-heart surgery for a blood clot, Dianne drove to St. John’s to see him.
“My son just dearly loved her,” she said.
On the nine-month anniversary of Justin’s passing last month, Ms. Faulkner said she was sitting at home at three o’clock in the morning, thinking about her son, when an idea came to her. Why not set up a Facebook page to see if she could find a kidney donor for Ms. Pardy, 42.
“So that’s what I did.”
Ms. Faulkner said the response has been “phenomenal.”
As of last week, ‘Let’s Find a Kidney Donor for Dianne’ had more than 2,000 members, sparking interest far and wide, from California to Sweden. [Read more]
An unexpected connection saved Patti Merritt from the life she anticipated after being diagnosed with kidney disease, a life like her father's, which ended early after lots of time hooked to a dialysis machine.
She paid it forward, creating a website, Kidney Connection, that links Buffalo-area residents who need kidneys with people willing to donate them.
Now the site is expanding to Albany, with a new tab called "The Albany Connection."
"In the world of social media that we live in, it's just one more way that we can help folks who are waiting," Merritt said Tuesday at the Legislative Office Building, as she and other advocates with the Northeast Kidney Foundation prepared to lobby lawmakers.
People who need kidneys wait an average of three to five years for an organ from a living donor, advocates said. In the eight years that the Kidney Connection has existed, 11 people in western New York have received kidneys from living donors who lived close by but were not their relatives. The number may seem small. Merritt, however, views each match as a huge success.
"They would not have happened were it not for the Kidney Connection, because these were strangers," said Merritt, a resident of the Buffalo suburb of Grand Island. When Merritt, now 49, was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease, she imagined repeating her father's life. He died at 56 after eight years of dialysis.
But when her sister-in-law heard of the diagnosis, she immediately offered a kidney, saying she had always thought about donating an organ to someone. Merritt didn't even realize someone who wasn't a relative could do that. She learned that the most important part of a match was having compatible blood types. That was the germ of idea for Kidney Connection.
People tell their stories about needing a kidney there. And kind strangers find them. The person in need of a kidney chooses how they prefer to be contacted — by phone, email or through a transplant center. Local TV coverage has helped spread the word, Merritt said.
"The people who come forward are not weirdos," Merritt, a social worker, reassured her audience of fellow advocates Tuesday. "They are normal, competent people who are just moved to help."
There are national websites that do the same thing as the Kidney Connection. While they might draw from a larger population of potential donors, Merritt believes there is something powerful about helping a neighbor.
And Kidney Connection is free, unlike some national sites. [Read more]
It has been a month since abc27 News told you about a Midstate soldier who donated his kidney to another.
abc27 News caught up with Sgt. Dan Famous and Sgt. Joe Love on Thursday.
Famous has polycystic kidney disease and was in desperate need of a transplant when Love, a fellow soldier, answered the call.
"It was something that I felt called to do, I felt is a privilege to do," Love said. "To donate my kidney to a man that I respect and admire is an easy decision."
In February, doctors took one of Love's healthy kidneys.
"Might just be mental, but my left side feels empty," Love said.
Doctors put his kidney into Famous, replacing his failing kidney. Famous looks and feels healthy but there are some things he will have to get used to.
"I'll be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of my life," Famous said, "much better than being on dialysis, yes."
Dialysis would have ended his military career and made his job as a husband and father much tougher.
"Getting this kidney is going to allow me to continue on with how I want to live my life, the things I want to do with my life, how I interact with my family, the things that we're going to do," Famous said.
The pair's "Famous-Love" story reached people across the country. They are hoping it will inspire others to take on a similar mission.
"If somebody can take the time to go get tested and donate a kidney, it'll change lives a thousand fold just receiving a kidney and not having to do dialysis," Famous said.
"If I had a third kidney to give away and I knew someone that needed it, absolutely," said Love.
There are currently nearly 100,000 people in the country waiting for a kidney transplant and the need for living donors is growing.
A kidney from a living donor is preferred because it can last twice as long as a cadaver kidney.
For more information on organ donation you can visit the following websites:
www.pinnaclehealth.org/transplant
www.organdonor.gov/index.html
www.donatelifepa.org
Kidney News
From CTVNews, Calgary, Canada, by Ryan White
More than two dozen patients at the Foothills Medical Centre’s dialysis unit are receiving treatment while they sleep as part of an overnight hemodialysis program.
The 26 patients in the program, situated in Unit 27 at the hospital, have experienced kidney failure and receive nocturnal hemodialysis three times a week to clean their blood of built up toxins and excess fluid. The eight hour, overnight treatments, are much gentler on the body than the traditional, four hour daytime dialysis sessions which, according to Dr. Jennifer MacRae, medical director of hemodialysis and home hemodialysis in the Southern Alberta Renal Program, are known to cause significant discomfort in patients.
“They tend to not tolerate it very well and have very low energy states,” said Dr. MacRae. “The mortality rate for a kidney patient at five years is approaching 50 per cent.”
30-year-old Caitlin Tighe says the program has resulted in a significant increase in her energy level.
“Now I can go for a swim or do hot yoga in the morning right after dialysis,” said Tighe. “Before, when I was doing four hours (of dialysis) during the day, I’d be so wiped out afterwards that I’d have to go home and sleep for another four hours. And then, not long after that, it would be time for bed.”
Studies have shown the long term impact of dialysis has not resulted in improved outlooks for patients and researchers continue to look for new ways to deliver better dialysis, including slowing the process during overnight treatment.
Dr. MacRae says providing dialysis to a patient over eight hours, three times a week, appears to result in an increase in a patient’s tolerance of dialysis, a reduction in the severity of a patient’s symptoms, and an increase in quality of life. [Read more]
From Emory University News, Office of Technology Transfer, Atlanta Georgia
26 million Americans have chronic kidney disease and millions of others are at increased risk, according to the National Kidney Foundation's website.
Patients suffering from kidney disease are presented with two main treatment options: dialysis and kidney transplant. Medical studies have shown that receiving a kidney transplant yields a better quality of life and chance of survival than going on dialysis. While it is required by law for clinicians or physicians to discuss kidney transplant as a treatment option with their patients, Emory epidemiologist Rachel Patzer, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in surgery, says that many eligible patients are not being referred for kidney transplantation. Through her research, Patzer found that such disparities were often present in regions outside the Atlanta area.
"There are disparities in who is getting access to that information about transplant, which I think is leading to some of the disparities we see in access to getting on the waiting list and receiving a transplant," Patzer says. While Patzer says the optimal treatment for kidney disease is transplant, she says this depends on patients' individualized risk profile, which includes factors such as their age and other possible medical conditions they may have.
To address treatment disparities and help patients understand the best treatment option for their individual cases, Patzer and her team created theiCHOOSE Kidney iPad application. The iCHOOSE Kidney app is a shared-decision making tool for providers or clinicians to use with their patients to inform them about potential risks and benefits of each treatment. "The app basically walks you through different risks for treatment options," Patzer says. [Read more]
From VibeGhana, Africa
Dr. Charlotte Osafo, Head of Kidney Unit at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, says 10 per cent of medical admissions at the Kidney clinic of the Hospital die from kidney failure.
She said out of 2000 patients that visited the clinic annually, only one per cent could afford dialysis treatment due to its expensive nature; and that a kidney patient has to spend not less than GHc1000 a week on dialysis.
“Though kidney infection can be cured through kidney transplant but unless a relative or a donor donates one to a Kidney patient”, she noted.
She, therefore, entreated the general public to visit a health facility at least once every year for a medical check-up for early detection so that appropriate intervention mechanism could be provided to avert a worse case scenario.
Dr. Osafo said this during a kidney screening for the staff of Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in Takoradi on Thursday which coincided with the International Kidney Day celebration.
The event was organized by the GRA and the National Kidney Foundation in collaboration with the Ghana Kidney Association and the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital.
It was also aimed at educating the general public about the kidney diseases and other related infections so that people would seek early treatment.
Dr. Osafo, a kidney Specialist, warned the general public to desist from self-medication, too much painkillers, alcohol, consumption of herbal concoctions as well as too much salt intake.
She also entreated persons with blood pressure, HIV, diabetes to abide strictly by medical treatment regime since such diseases are recipe for one getting Kidney problems.
Touching on the symptoms of kidney infections, Dr. Osafo indicated that an affected kidney person might pass a lot of urine at night, sweat profusely, vomiting, tiredness, blood in the faeces and experience swollen feet.
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