The Hardest Parts of Being a Kidney Patient

From the outside looking in, it might appear that dialysis would be one of the hardest parts of being a kidney patient.

To me, that's one of the easiest. Even the complications that come up are not that hard for me to deal with.

For me, the hardest part of being a patient is seeing the hardship my health is causing to those who love me. I see it in my kids’ eyes, though they never say a word.

I see it in my nephew’s face each time I answer a question he has for me.
I felt it in the silence between my best friend and I when I e-mailed him contact numbers for my family “just in case”.

The next hardest thing is making friends during those 4 hour shifts and then losing them.

There are some who come for treatment angry at the world. Some just don’t say anything at all. Ever.

Others of us do what we have to do and make the best of it.

Some of us develop decent friendships during treatment. Then someone changes shifts or changes days and then you lose touch.

It hurts when you haven’t seen someone in awhile or heard how they are doing and you happen to glance at a picture in the obituaries and realize it was someone you used to dialyze with.

That’s what happened to me this morning.

I was skimming the paper and saw that a friend that had moved to California passed away last week.

The last I heard, she was doing really well. Her health was improving and she was very happy with the move.

Not sure what happened, not sure I’ll ever know. She has been missed…

R.I.P. Sharon Garrison
5/25/44 to 9/17/11