Female Speaker: At age 50, Michael Rhein has a demanding job as a banquet waiter and he hits the gym three or four times a week. So it may surprise you that Michael's kidneys stopped working five years ago. A machine has taken over the critical job of filtering his blood.
Michael Rhein: At night three times a week I come to dialysis and I have my blood cleaned.
Farzana Perward: Dialysis becomes necessary for a patient when he does not make adequate urine output or is unable to clear the body of its waste products.
Glenn Chertow: Dialysis itself is a process of using an artificial kidney to help filter out some of the waste products that the kidneys would otherwise be able to filter out on their own. It is our best current therapy in all of medicine I believe for replacement of organ function.
Female Speaker: People with kidney failure can not survey without regular Dialysis unless they receive a new kidney.
Glenn Chertow: For the very, very best long-term outcomes for persons with kidney failure, the kidney transplant is usually preferred.
Female Speaker: 75% of patients who have a kidney transplant live at least five years compared to 35% of those on dialysis. Unfortunately, there is a catch.
Michael Rhein: I've been on the list now five years and now I'm on the ready list, I have passed all the pre-test, checking your heart and your body and making sure are healthy for a surgery. So it could be tomorrow or it could be in the year or so.
Glenn Chertow: For most persons who have kidney failure who are waiting for a deceased donor kidney, the waiting times are long and they continue to lengthen.
Female Speaker: There is a way around the waiting list, because people only need one kidney, sometimes a living relative or friend can become the donor.
Tracy Fortson: We tell people who are waiting to be transplanted to really consider the options of having a living donor. A lot of people don't even think about the fact that they can have a family member who would be willing or a good match for them.
Female Speaker: When a living donor is not an option, patients have no choice but to wait and that means making dialysis a way of life for the long-term.
Tracy Fortson: Some people think when they find out that their kidneys have failed on their own dialysis, it's a death sentence and they don't realize, no you can still live an active productive life, but they need to hear those stories and see the examples of people who are living with diseases and living well with this disease. It's very motivating to hear or to see a patient who says, I was just like you, I've been on dialysis for 20 years but in those 20 years I've got married, I've gotten my PhD, I have grandchildren, I've traveled the world.
Michael Rhein: I'm like the kid that walks around the sandbox. But there maybe a broken shovel and a bucket, but I know that I can make the sand castle just as good and as great as the other people who are there.
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