I’m writing not just as a nurse, but as a wife and caregiver. My husband Kenneth was diagnosed with IgA nephropathy at just 20 years old. That disease slowly damaged his kidneys, leading to kidney failure and the need for dialysis, a treatment that does the work of the kidneys by cleaning the blood when the kidneys can no longer do so. For the past decade, we’ve built our life around his treatment. We started with peritoneal dialysis at home, which involved using a catheter and fluid exchange to filter his blood overnight while he slept. When that was no [...]

For decades, I worked as a teacher and mentor to students I loved. Then suddenly, I was diagnosed with kidney failure. Now, I’m a dialysis patient who relies on an exhausting treatment to survive. I was first diagnosed with kidney disease in 2016 after a family history of high blood pressure caught up with me. I came off dialysis for a few years after weight loss surgery, but in 2023, my kidneys failed again. I had to stop working, because of having too many doctor's appointments and too many sick days. I lost my private insurance, and Medicaid turned me [...]