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 [...]

I have end-stage renal disease (ESRD), or kidney failure. My journey began after a serious accident at age 12 caused my kidneys to fail. My mother selflessly donated one of her kidneys, which lasted about eight years. At 20, my body began rejecting the transplant, and I had to start dialysis—a taxing but life-saving treatment done three times a week to filter the blood. The transition was overwhelming. I often rode a bus to San Francisco at 6 a.m. and returned home at midnight. Like many others, I had to adjust to a difficult new normal. After 16 years on [...]

I was diagnosed with kidney failure at 34. I lacked formal education about the disease, and within a year I began losing my sight to diabetic retinopathy. I’m now legally blind and depend on others for daily tasks. It’s been a difficult journey, but I’ve grown as a person throughout it. Patients like me shouldn’t have to worry about finances. I’m lucky enough to afford dialysis, a frequent treatment that filters my blood since my kidneys can’t, since it’s covered by Medicare and charitable donations. I remember paying out of pocket for a few months at the beginning of my [...]