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Alabama Kidney Foundation
I would like to share with you a story about a person with kidney disease. In 1977, this person was diagnosed with kidney disease at the early age of 9. What was thought to be an appendix attack, turned out to be a severe kidney infection with a later discovery that the child was born with only one kidney that functioned and that the right kidney was only the size of a walnut. After numerous trips to Shands Teaching Hospital in Gainesville, Florida (the best at the time), the single-parent mother of this child was told her child could live with this one kidney forever even though it was only functioning at 80%.
At age 16, this child was diagnosed with hypertension and was placed on medication to help control the blood pressure. During a hospital stay for a severe Urinary Tract Infection at age 20, a kidney specialist (Nephrologists) was called in for a consultation. He stated that the kidney function numbers were a little elevated, but this patient could live on these numbers a lifetime. The physician did recommend that a yearly checkup would not be a bad idea though just to keep a watch on everything.
Jumping ahead a few to July 1995 during the yearly checkup, this patient was told they were going to eventually need a kidney transplant and should make plans to go to Birmingham to be evaluated so that their name could be placed on the waiting list. What a shock this was to a 26-year old who had just gone through a divorce the month before. But in December of that same year, this person traveled to UAB, was evaluated, and their name was added to the waiting list for a kidney transplant on December 12th. This person was told the average waiting time for a kidney was approximately two years.
The kidney function continued to deteriorate and this person became a dialysis patient in February 1997. This person chose to do Peritoneal Dialysis since they were working two jobs just trying to make ends meet being a single person. Dialysis did not stop this person though. They continued to travel by going to the beach and even Dallas TX and doing the treatments in the car. This person even played softball for their co-ed team at work.
In September 1998, this person started having trouble with the PD catheter and was told eventually in October that they would have to go on Hemodialysis for several weeks so that the PD catheter could come out and the site could heal. The surgery was scheduled for October 30th to start down this dreaded road of going to a dialysis clinic three times each week to continue life.
But at 11:55 pm on October 23rd, this person’s telephone rang; it was the Alabama Organ Center in Birmingham telling this person that a kidney was available for them. Not knowing for sure if they would come home with a kidney or not since all of the previously mentioned complications, this person traveled to UAB against all hope that this was their miracle.
The doctors came in and made the decision that the person was suitable for transplant and the surgery was scheduled for noon that day. After waiting 34 long months, I received the gift of life and on October 24, 2010; I will celebrate having MY kidney transplant for 11 years. YES, THIS IS MY STORY.
Today, I stand before you as a fellow state employee (I am Chief of Finance & Administrative Division for the Alabama Ethics Commission), a volunteer for the Alabama Kidney Foundation, and a kidney transplant recipient who knows the everyday life of a person with kidney disease.
I have been involved with AKF approximately ten years because it is so easy to volunteer for an organization to help those who live life on dialysis.
I hope that I have created a visual for you of the life of a person with kidney disease and the importance to raise funds to help people like this.
Barbi Lee
Alabama Ethics Commission
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