2008 'Kid'ney Kids Calendar
On Friday, September 14, 2007, eleven separate planes arrived in Washington, DC, carrying a few very special visitors. The 11 visitors, accompanied by family members, range in ages seven through 18 and have won the American Kidney Fund’s (AKF) 12th Annual 2008 National "Kid"ney Kids Calendar art contest for children with kidney disease.
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2008 Donate Life Rose Parade Float
The increasing need for donated organs has motivated the transplant community to adopt creative techniques to inspire people to choose to be organ and tissue donors. Among such efforts, perhaps the most innovative and far-reaching is the entry of the Donate Life float in the world-famous Rose Parade, held on New Year's Day every year in Pasadena, Calif.
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2008 New Year’s Resolutions for the Renal Diet
From Thanksgiving to the new year, patients with kidney failure in particular must be careful what and how much they eat. Holiday foods are replete with phosphorus, potassium, and sodium. Therefore, it takes some effort for kidney patients to be extra adherent to their renal diets. Here are some tips from one of our favorite renal dietitians on how to eat healthy year-round
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A Nephrologist as a Cancer Patient Finds Enlightenment in a Support Group
Lessons learned about health and illness came not from an extremely busy nephrology practice, but, for me, from becoming a sarcoma (cancer) patient. It started in my thigh but metastasized to my lungs. After intensive chemotherapy and two major chest surgeries, I had a new respect for health, and realized that the experience of battling malignancy paralleled that of being a kidney patient. In fact, my dialysis and transplant patients were my source of inspiration, and still are.
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A Ride Across America 2: A Journey to Promote Organ Donation
In April 2006 (National Donate Life Month), we assembled a team of transplant recipients, living donors, and family members of donors and recipients and completed our second "Big Ride." After loading up our gear, we traveled from San Francisco to New York City on (take a guess...) ATVs!
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Adapting to ESRD and Dialysis: Emotional Wellness is a Key to Renal Rehabilitation
While people with ESRD [end-stage renal disease] face many physical and emotional changes related to their disease and its treatments, strategies for coping do exist. The basis for successful adjustment includes two key elements: optimal clinical care to improve how patients feel, and rehabilitation management to improve their ability to function.
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Are Fish Oil Supplements Right For You?
According to the American Heart Association (AHA), EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), the "omega-3 fatty acids" found in fish, can reduce the risk of developing heart disease1. Fish oil supplements, which are about 30% omega-3 fatty acids, may be especially helpful for hemodialysis patients, especially those:
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Bush Baby Travels the Globe - Learning about Love, Joy, and Support While Living with Kidney Failure
This is a story about a little stuffed koala bear-like animal that has traveled the globe to visit people with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), bringing them love, joy, and support from fellow travelers with kidney failure. The tiny toy creature, called "Bush Baby," has journeyed to five continents, staying with one enthusiastic host or hostess after another.
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Can You See Me Now? Waiting Room Tactics to Help Get You Noticed
You rushed to get ready and fought traffic all the way to the doctor’s office. You barely made it in time for your appointment and then there you are, an hour later, and you still haven’t seen your doctor.
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Coming Full Circle
Because of the gifts I found deeply buried in the treasure chest of kidney failure, I will never, ever forget that I am to turn around and help those coming up behind me, so that they can turn around and help those coming up behind them, who can then turn around and help those coming up behind them.
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Commitment, Self-Evaluation, and the Value of Employment and Hope for Kidney Patients
Life as we have known it changes. That is why it is so critical to retain as much as possible the things that have given us purpose, identity, and financial reward. We need to keep working... at something!
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Educate Yourself With This Fun Dialysis Trivia Quiz-1
Test yourself with these entertaining questions about kidney disease.
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Enrich a Life- Share Your Knowledge
As someone with chronic kidney disease, I have found that knowledge has aided my ability to cope with my illness. If you saw me leaving the local public library, you might see just a pair of legs sticking out beneath a pile of books! I love to read, and that’s how I learn more about many different topics, including ways to live a more active life with kidney disease.
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Essay Contest - 3rd Place (2002) Tie
Theme: "How the staff at your dialysis unit or transplant center encourages you to live a fulfilling life in spite of kidney disease"
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Exercise Program Tips for Dialysis Patients
Although you see your physician regularly to control your blood sugar and your BP, what are you doing to increase your physical activity? It is equally as important--and maybe even easier to control--than BP and blood sugar. You can be more physically active, and it may just save your life.
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Fast Food Facts
Quick-service restaurants provide us with a quick, easy, inexpensive bite when we’re pressed for time.
If you are a regular through the drive-up window or frequently dine in at fast food restaurants, keep these tips in mind:
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Fight Procrastination
I procrastinate. Do you?
Let’s stop.
Dreading something often takes more energy than doing it. There is a basic reason why most people don’t accomplish what they could: They just can’t get started. Why?
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Four Things That Matter Most
Not long ago, I heard a powerful song. In it, a man shares with his friend some insights about living that he learned while facing death. Paraphrased, he learned to love deeper, speak sweeter, and give the forgiveness he had been denying others. He expressed his hope that his friend would learn to live these truths while he still had life.
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From the Ironing Board to Tokyo: My Worldwide Adventures as a Peritoneal Dialysis Patient
In May 1999, it became clear that I would soon have to start continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD). Since I had planned to visit an inter-religious conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, that summer, my first question to the nephrologist was: "Will it be possible for me to travel there?"
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Getting Well with Humor
If your doctor ever tells you to lighten up, do not be offended. Such a prescription may sound ridiculous, but research shows that laughter and a positive attitude can be healing. There’s nothing funny about kidney disease, but people are living happy, productive lives today because they learned to lighten up when things were not going as planned.
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Holding Infinity in Their Palms: An Ode to Dialysis Patients
Time spent on dialysis is long, 12-to-15 hours a week, plus transportation between home and the dialysis unit; or setting and cleaning the machine if they perform the treatment at home. And, frequently, they feel tired and fatigued after treatment because of the rapid shift in body chemical composition and change in fluid volume. Many of them are in the hospital a lot of times for repeated infections or clotting of the bloodline, or for heart disease and shortness of breath.
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Holiday Dining Tips
The best piece of advice for dining during the holidays is to do your homework and plan ahead with regard to what you can eat.
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Holiday of Hope at Staples Center
There were caramel apples and cookies to decorate, games to play and music to dance to, but the fun really started when world-famous comedian George Lopez and Los Angeles Lakers star Kwame Brown, hosts of the 3rd Annual Holiday of Hope at Staples Center, showed up to give interviews and autographs. Crowds of kids bombarded Kwame and George for autographs on programs, admittance tags, photos, t-shirts and even elbows-and to have their photos snapped with their heroes!
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Hope, Sprinkled with a Generous Dose of Humor, is How My Husband Dealt with Kidney Failure
It's no different in the world of kidney disease. Shortly before we met in 1967, my husband, Jerry, was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease (CKD). In 1980, he began a 25-year stint on home hemodialysis (HHD). During those years, he was a model for everything positive and hopeful about living well with CKD.
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How Can You Care For Your New Kidney Transplant?
No matter how long you have your new kidney, your body will always know that it does not belong to you and will try to attack it. As long as you have a working kidney transplant, you will be taking medicine to prevent rejection.
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How Kidney Patients Can Effectively Communicate with Their Case Managers
Renal Case Managers specialize in the delivery of care to individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Their primary role is to coordinate the continuity of care and help ensure that individuals get the proper treatment at the right time in order to maximize their outcome.
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If You Could Read My Mind, Love
So many times I wish my wife could have read my mind. How much easier that would have been! Despite our closeness, despite the extraordinary number of hours spent together on my dialysis nights, despite long rambling conversations about everything and nothing, she still wasn't privy to all my thoughts.
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Interview with the Healthcare Professional - Caregivers Appreciated
Chicken Soup Author LeAnn Thieman, RN, Believes That Dialysis and Other Chronic Illness Caregivers Should Be ‘Honored and Appreciated’
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Just an Annoyance: Confronting the Dialysis 'Baggage'
When faced with a chronic disease, every person reacts differently. Becoming “the patient” is never as simple as lying down and gracefully submitting to whatever treatment is recommended. Entering the world of ongoing illness, we drag along a conglomeration of baggage—upbringing, past experience, relationships, culture, religion, and fears.
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Kids With Kidney Disease Can Realize Their Dreams and Live Long, Normal, Productive Lives
It is important upfront to realize and believe that, like many adults, children with kidney failure requiring dialysis and/or a renal transplant can live long, normal, productive lives. And equally important: kidney kids can realize their dreams! While there will be barriers to jump and setbacks to overcome, there will also be the ultimate triumph of living happy lives. Your parents, friends, and renal healthcare team will be especially helpful to you.
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Kids, Clowns, and Dialysis: The Pediatric Dialysis Program at the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital
There is a wonderful place I recently visited whose dedicated professional medical staff does its best to provide the very best treatment it can to a child or adolescent with kidney disease and renal failure. It is the Comprehensive Pediatric Dialysis Program at the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital at Memorial in Hollywood, FL. Now, you wouldn’t think a hospital would really be a great place, particularly for kids, but this place is one of a kind.
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Laughter is Cheap Medicine
Months went by, and no laughter—only pills, doctors, and the harmonious beep-beep of the machines. I felt fragile, and worst of all, sick.
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Living the Writing Life and Being a Peritoneal Dialysis Patient
As someone who has written 43 books down through the years, I am seen as having some sort of supernatural gift. Instead, I started out at least as wide of the mark as Austin and his basketball. With practice, I grew faster and more accurate. Skill? Intellect? I wish I had a lot of either. What I do have is tenacity, the belief that, by now, I can hit some sort of literary basket every time I shoot.
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Looking for Adventure: A Grand Waltz with Dialysis
This was not the first adventure Bill and the NxStage kidney machine have been on together. Bill traveled and dialyzed daily with his machine this last year on a road trip to Chicago with his dog, Cairny, taking in Yellowstone National Park along the way. He has also flown to three destinations with his machine. He can now say that he has been over land, sea, and air with his kidney machine.
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Make the Most of Your Doctor Visit
I have been on this journey now for nearly 10 years. From what I have learned, I recommend that anyone with a life-threatening health condition develop a collaborative partnership with his or her doctor and medical team.
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Managing Stress: What Kidney Patients, Family Members, and Caregivers Need to Know
Trying to replace what kidneys used to do requires hemodialysis treatments three times a week, or daily exchanges for the peritoneal dialysis patient, or a renal transplant. But dialysis is just the beginning. There are daily medicines, dietary restrictions, fluid limitations, and financial burdens that accompany dialysis treatments. This can result in extreme emotional stress.
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My Terrific “Normal” Life
I was born June 13, 1970 in Houston, Texas, a healthy, “normal” baby girl. At age 3, my family moved to Kenner, Louisiana, outside New Orleans. As a child, I loved sports. I played volleyball, basketball, and softball. I was best at softball. I played each summer in a neighborhood league. One of my childhood friends that I played with, Paige Weber, was the best in the league. She went on to play softball on a statewide level
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Nutrition Tips For Enhancing the Dialysis Patient's Quality of Life
Good nutrition is a very important part of your renal treatment plan whether you are on hemodialysis (HD) or peritoneal dialysis (PD). To move forward with your best in all aspects of your life as a kidney patient, make an effort to maintain yourself by eating enough of the right kinds of foods or less of those "forbidden" foods.
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Overcoming the Stumbling Blocks of Kidney Disease
Did you ever think life just wasn't treating you right? Maybe things were just going along great and the Boom!--something happens to change your entire life's focus. Maybe you thought you had a handle on a particular problem or issue, and then one little change turns your world upside down.
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Perceptions: Images in a House of Mirrors
The misconceptions about dialysis can be repetitive, frustrating, and nowhere near reality. So what can we, as patients or family members, do to counter these distorted images? Think Education, Attitude, Communication, Humor! “EACH” of us can reflect an image that will help portray dialysis in a more positive light.
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Preparing for Emergencies: A Guide for People on Dialysis (Emergency Food List)
Emergencies caused by severe weather or disasters can happen with or without warning. This Emergecny Food List prepared by CMS, is to be used in conjuction with the 3-day Emergency Diet Plan and will aid you in your emergency preparedness so you can feel better and stay healthier.
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Seeing the Big Picture: Communicating With Your Nephrologist About Goals and Expectations
What are the expectations of my patients, and how do they compare with my own expectations of them? Is there more that we can do together to allow patients to accomplish those goals? Free and open communication is an absolute necessity if patients are to achieve their goals and not fall prey to the trap of low expectations coming either from themselves or their caregivers.
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Seize the Day: Coping With Dialysis
Your social worker is an advocate for you and is there to help you. Discuss with him/her any issues you may have regarding dialysis or receiving a transplant.
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Slip, Slop, Slap- Preventing Harmful Effects of the Sun
Warnings about the damaging effects of the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays on the skin have been at the forefront of health advice for years. As a kidney transplant recipient, I know that the chance of getting skin cancer is much higher for me than for the rest of the population.
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Smart Snacking Choices for the Dialysis Patient
Hungry? Not sure what to eat when you get the munchies? The following are some ideas on what to eat in between meals to help you maintain your nutritional well being without all that extra potassium and phosphorus. Each “smart snack" contains less than 130 milligrams (mg) of potassium and less than 80 mg of phosphorus. Check with your renal dietitian on the number of servings that are appropriate for you.
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Something For Everyone at the U.S. Transplant Games
The success of transplant athletics--specifically, the U.S. Transplant Games--has created new opportunities to demonstrate the success of transplantation and the critical need for additional donors.
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Spring Fling: Earning Your Dialysis Dollars
"Have you earned your Dialysis Dollars today?"
That was a common question heard throughout the Jane Phillips Dialysis Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. We began this motivational program for our patients in November 2006. The social worker and dietitian worked together to develop a way to involve patients in their own healthcare and well-being. Our goal was to get as many patients as possible interested in their lab work and attitude in an effort to improve their health, increase happiness, and encourage hope.
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Taking the Leap: Transitioning From a Pediatric to an Adult Dialysis Unit
For a lot of pediatric patients, visits with their nephrology team can be like going to a department store: they take an interest in a lot of things. You may have gone into the store because you are have a special need in the kidney aisle, but end up passing by the immunology section on the way in and on your way out the dietitian counter offers you special incentives.
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The Great Equalizer: My Life as a Kidney Kid and Beyond
There comes a time in people's lives when they face a tragedy, a life-changing moment or string of events. It is how individuals handle adversity that will truly define them. It shows the world what they are made of and what their mark on their loved ones, their community, and even the universe, will be.
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The World or Bust
Why do I travel? I think it comes back to how I deal with kidney disease and life in general. I live in the moment—which, let me tell you, has its significant drawbacks.
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Valerie's Story
My introduction to ESRD first occurred when I was in the ER and the attending Physician came into my “room” patted me on my knee and ever so nicely asked me, “Have we ever had renal failure before?” To which I sarcastically quipped, “No, WE have not”! That twisted sense of humor was to be my saving grace throughout my forthcoming journey.
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Websites For Kidney Kids and Their Families Offer a Broad Spectrum of Useful Information
Here are some great websites that kidney kids and their families may find useful in their journey to obtain a better quality of life for children with chronic kidney and other serious diseases.
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What Kids Need to Know About Kidneys
Everybody knows that some organs in the human body are necessary for survival. You need your brain, your heart, your lungs, and especially your kidneys...
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