A difficult birth, shock and oxygen deprivation damaged both my kidneys. As a teenager I skipped my medication. At 26, a single glass of orange juice sent me straight to the emergency room. This is how my dialysis began.
It Started the Moment I Was Born
Well, I was born through a difficult delivery — shock and oxygen deprivation damaged both kidneys, and I went into chronic kidney failure from the start.
Young Kidney Patients Will Understand
Throughout school I didn't take a single one of the many pills I was prescribed. Young kidney patients will get this — back then I was immature and didn't want to be looked at differently. I wanted to be like everyone else, so I simply stopped taking the medication.
What's different about chronic kidney failure is this: you get tired very easily. Really, really easily. Every day felt like I hadn't slept enough (toxins piling up, after all).
A Glass of Orange Juice at 26
I graduated from university without trouble, found a job and worked hard. Then at 26, in the middle of a workday, my parents suddenly called: based on my test results, the doctor at Chang Gung Hospital said I needed a fistula created immediately and emergency dialysis.
I brushed it off: "Okay, okay, I'll go back in a few days."
That evening I drank an orange juice a colleague bought me (high potassium). Within hours: vomiting, then pulmonary edema.
Pulmonary edema feels like trying to breathe inside a swimming pool.
I couldn't lie down to sleep anymore — I could only sit up. My breath started to smell of ammonia. That's when I finally realized how serious things were… but by then it was far too late.
Not Until You See the Coffin
Even though doctors had told me when I was young that I would definitely need dialysis someday, "won't shed a tear until you see the coffin" describes people like me perfectly.
Luckily, Heaven still gave me a little face: it let me finish school and start working before dialysis began.
What do I have to complain about? Nothing. If anything, I should thank Heaven.
Originally published on the author's Pixnet blog "A Dialysis Life Destined to Be Extraordinary / Kidney Transplant Reflections," 30 December 2020.
The content of this article is personal reflection and experience sharing only, and is not medical advice. For any questions about your health, illness or physical care, please seek help through professional medical channels and consult your physician.
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Shock at birth led to chronic glomerulonephritis; dialysis began at 26; a kidney transplant came on Christmas Day at 32. After the transplant I walked into a hospital with gratitude and became a health educator for diabetes and kidney patients — because I know fear comes from not understanding.