Note from the PKD Foundation

On Monday morning, I received a comment on my blog from the Communications Manager at the Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) Foundation. They have an e-newsletter that they send out, and she wanted to know if it would be alright for her to include a link to my blog. I told her "Yes", and I expect to see my daily hits spike on Wednesday through the rest of the week.

For those of you who are reading this for the first time, let me give you a quick overview of who I am. I am a 28-year old guy living in Texas that was diagnosed with PKD about 8 years ago (or so) when I was in college. I lived in harmony with my slowly-declining kidneys until the beginning of 2005. I was sick, then I had a minor stroke, then I was on blood thinners, and then I was sick again. It ended up with my left kidney swelling to about 15 lbs (about 6.8 kg) and having to be surgically removed. My previous kidney function of around 20% suddenly dropped to less than 10% with the removal of one of my kidneys. I started dialysis in August of 2005, and got put on the transplant list in January of 2006. Since then, I have been continuing dialysis while running my friends and family through the donor process. I am on my third "potential" candidate. Also, I have moved up high enough to be called by then hospital if they have a close enough match come in to the system. This has happened once, but I did not match, so I continue to do dialysis and wait.

The greatest help that I have had through this has been my faith in God. As a Christian, I feel that God gives me the strength on a day-to-day basis to keep on living. I have faith that He has a plan for my life and that He has kidney ready for me, at the right time. If you are not a Christian, don't worry, because I don't really fill my blog with preaching. But, if you have questions, please e-mail me and I'll help you with anything I can. That goes for PKD info as well as Christianity.

Now that I've given you an introduction (even though I expect you ALL to go back and read all of my old posts) - I'll give a more normal update. I have dialysis tonight. Since it is the first Tuesday (after the first Monday) of the month, tonight should be lab work. I hope that my phosphorus has not gone up too high since they started giving me Hectorol. The Hectorol is to help control my high PTH. The side effect is that it can raise your phosphorus, which is the only number on my lab report that I have really had a hard time keeping in control. It's not easy when you enjoy cheese as much as I do!

So, thanks for coming by to read today. Please pray that Kala's testing will continue to go well. She let me know that she doesn't have TB, which is good. Pray that God will have the best kidney for me at exactly the right time, and that the surgery will go well when we get to that point. Please pray for my continued health so that when the kidney arrives, I won't be too sick to take it. And, finally, keep praying for Jenny, who has to put up with me on a daily basis.

One last thing, if you want to learn more about the PKD foundation and what they do, please visit: http://www.pkdcure.org/. From there, you can read about the disease, and learn about ways that you can help (most of which are financial).

Enjoy your day!