A SALUTE to MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS
The Kidney Dialysis Lunch Club
Life with a teenage kidney patient
Three to four days a week, I drive fifty miles into the city through thick and thin traffic, good or bad weather. Nothing deters me. I am on a mission to sustain the life of my grandson.
My destination is the only pediatric kidney dialysis center in Southeast Texas, part of a large children’s hospital complex. My grandson suffers from End Stage Renal Disease. His treatment is kidney dialysis, with hope resting on the potential of a kidney transplant.
He’s one of thousands of children and hundreds of thousands of adults inflicted with the disease.
Over the last sixty years, kidney research and medical advancements have improved. Donor matching, with improved surgical procedures and pharmaceutical and dialysis advancements, has extended lifespans and improved treatment outcomes for kidney patients.
The hospital coordinating his care has the world’s third-largest pediatric nephrology research and practicing team. It has invested tens of millions of dollars in a state-of-the-art facility.
Dialysis is a lifesaving therapy; it either continues for years, ends with a kidney transplant, or, in rare situations, leads to an untimely…
