January 2007
Dear Friends, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a great start to this new year. We had a quiet holiday this year as my husband, Ted, began kidney dialysis in early December. We go to a clinic three days a week for 3 – 4 hours of hemodialysis. On January 8th, we will start going to the clinic five days a week as we train to do home hemodialysis, and we expect by the end of the month to bring the machine and supplies home. We are looking forward to doing his dialysis ourselves at home.
Although I usually share some recipes or homemaking tips, allow me this month to share a bit of our personal story. Ted has had kidney failure for over 20 years and was on hemodialysis 12 years until he received a kidney transplant in 1999. In 1994 we spent several months in his clinic learning to run the large dialysis machine ourselves.
The machine was moved into our home and we set up our back bedroom as our dialysis room. One 5 year old neighbor called it the “hospital house” and, indeed it looked like it! Three afternoons a week I put two large dialysis needles into Ted’s arm and ran him on the machine for 4+ hours. With water testing, disinfection procedures plus the time he spent on the machine, it took us about 6 hours, three days a week, for over 6 years at home.
Then, late one night, the call for which we had waited over ten years came. A kidney transplant was available; after further testing, it was a match for Ted. The days and weeks that ensued were a whirlwind; that’s a story for another day! After a few months, Ted was finally able to get off dialysis. For the first time in more than 12 years, Ted was not dependent on a machine to stay alive.
How grateful we are to the donor and their family who donated their loved one’s organs. Not only could Ted now lead a healthier, more normal life, but others received life-saving organs. Let me encourage you and your family to discuss organ donation and prayerfully consider putting “organ donor” on your diver’s license. As a bumper sticker reads, “Don’t take your organs to heaven; heaven knows we need them here.”
Ted’s transplant worked for nearly seven years. Some last much longer, but for a variety of reasons, they do not last forever. Recently we watched his blood test results get worse, we knew that without another transplant, he would need to return to dialysis.
That is where we found ourselves in early December. Ted got back on the waiting list for another transplant as no family members are a match for him. We were told that the current waiting time for a kidney of his B blood type is over four years. Last time it took over ten years before a match was found. We leave everything in the Lord’s hands, trusting Him and His love for us.
While we pray for another transplant, we are so pleased that there is a new, easier to use dialysis machine for patients who want to do hemodialysis at home (
www.NxStage.com). Instead of going to a dialysis clinic four hours, three days a week, we will do about 3 hours of dialysis at home six days a week. Ted will feel better with the daily treatments and that makes all our time and effort to do home dialysis worthwhile.
Needless to say, our lives have been really changed, too! Six days a week we must dedicate part of our day to dialysis. We’ve had to make many adjustments; as the doctor said, “Be flexible.” Very flexible, I might add!
Cooking nutritious meals is essential as Ted’s need for protein and more calories soar while on dialysis. While he is still in the clinic doing dialysis three days a week, toxins build up in his blood between treatments. He must limit fluid intake, and carefully restrict calcium, phosphorous, potassium, and sodium. That means very limited dairy products, no potatoes unless they have been soaked overnight, and carefully measured and balanced fruit and vegetables, to keep potassium from building up to dangerous levels. Much of this will change when we begin dialysis six days a week, and his diet will be more liberal.
Ladies, how important it is that you learn to cook and teach your children, too! Hopefully you will never need to cook for someone on dialysis, but we all need good nutrition. When you cook from scratch, you control what is in your food. Your health, and that of your family, depends on you, the food you shop for and the meals you prepare. Do not take that responsibility lightly, and don’t outsource your meals to the deli, take-out, drive-thru, or pizza place!
As we adjust to dialysis, we covet your prayers and hope you will bear with us. It may take us a little longer to respond to e-mails or orders. I will continue to post my Online Letter as I have time; that may not always be at the beginning of the month, but as I’m able. I plan to post some of the lessons from the FCH Handbook, plus some recipes and lessons I’ve taught since the Handbook was written. You are welcome to print them to use with your children or FCH group.
We all face our own set of trials or difficulties from time to time. There is a place of no more pain, no more tears, no more sorrow. That place is not here, but in heaven. That time is not now, but for all eternity to those who know and love the Lord. If you do not know for sure that you will spend eternity in heaven, and want to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, please
click here to read “The Way of Salvation.”
I want to close with some verses that inspire me and I hope will bless you, too, in this new year: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:7, 17-18 (NKJV)
Yours in Him
Copyright, 2007, Laurie Latour.
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