My Kidney Diaries

Davita dialysis center has a class called Kidney Smart.  Once your doctor sees dialysis in your near future you should go to a class and learn all of the different options out there for dialysis.  There are 2 main options available to you Hemodialysis and Peritoneal Dialysis.

Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) starts with having a catheter surgically inserted into the abdomen.  Bags of dialysate fluid are infused into the abdomen (peritoneal cavity) through the catheter (takes about 30 minutes) and left to capture toxins and waste products that leach out of the blood vessels in your abdomen over a period of time, called dwell time, usually 4-6 hours.  After your dwell time, the fluid is then drained and disposed of.  This procedure, called an exchange is done 3-4 times a day, every day.

There is a second option called Nocturnal Peritoneal Dialysis.  NPD is done while you sleep and takes about 9 hours to complete.  You get a machine called a Cycler that fills your abdomen with dialysate fluid sl…

After moving to Indiana in August of 2017 I immediately called to make an appointment with a local Nephrologist.  With a specialist you typically can't just make your own appointment, you have to have a referral from another doctor.  In this case they wanted a referral from my local family practitioner. That was going to be a problem because my family practitioner was back in Georgia and I had not set one up in Indiana yet.  So I got the scoop on what they needed to verify that I indeed did qualify for Nephrology and wasted no time getting all the information to them.  I am so thankful that they took the time to listen to me and let me provide the documents they needed.  We were off to a good start, however, I had to wait until December before I could get my first appointment with my new doctor.

Meeting my new Nephrologist was good.  My mom came with me as she had previously worked in the dental field and my new dr had been one of her patients.  They exchanged greetings and I told…

When my kidney biopsy results came back positive for IgA Nephropathy I, as many people are prone to do, Googled it! I wanted to know all about this disease. What is it? How did I get it? How is this going to effect me? Will it ever go away? I searched and searched and read as much as I could. It was all so complex to me. I was encouraged to read that it could be a slow progressing disease, but discouraged when I read that there was no cure for it. One of the best and easiest explanations I have found was on the University of North Carolina's Kidney Center web page. Here is an excerpt of their definition:

IgA Nephropathy is named for the deposits of IgA that can be seen stuck in the kidney filters when viewed under a microscope. IgA is an immunoglobulin– a normal component of a healthy immune system. These components normally attach themselves to infection in the body and trigger the immune response. This works to eliminate the infection. In this disease, a defective form…