A 39-year old man has opened up on the struggle of living with Renal Kidney failure, a condition he was diagnosed with about 20 year ago.
Kidney failure occurs when kidneys lose the ability to sufficiently filter waste from a human’s blood. The condition can be caused by certain acute and chronic diseases, exposure to toxic environments (pollutants) and medication, severe dehydration, insufficient blood flow to kidneys and kidney trauma according to healthline.com.
Emmanuel Gitau from Kiambu county developed kidney problems at the age of 18 years when he was still a form four student at Aquinas High school.
At that instance, he underwent his first operation and ended up being given 11 pints of blood because he was seriously ill.
“IÂ had a HB of 3 but after the operation I felt at peace. I was almost asthmatic, I had stomach upsets, different operations but when I was at Kijabe due to the duodenal ulcer operation, after the operation, I was at great peace, as a youth I thought I would be able to do my things,” Gitau told Citizen Digital.
7 months later, he was diagnosed with Kidney failure when he went for the post operation procedures.
“Actually at that time I was diarrheaing and urinating blood. It was really tough. Despite being told I had kidney failure, I thought that I would be admitted for 2-3 days or maybe a week and I will be through with it only to know that it will be with me up to this day,”Gitau said.
The small businessman has been to hospital countless times and has 14 major operations.
“I pay to urinate. Per urination in 9500. By paying is that I go to dialysis twice in a week. Actually, per session dialysis is 9500[Kshs]. I am supposed to actually dialyze thrice a week. I usually urinate 5 hours. A normal person it is an issue of seconds,” he explained adding that the procedure however comes with side effects such as headaches.
Initially, Gitau underwent dialysis for about three years before his family sought the alternative of kidney transplant.
“I started dialysis in 2002 , 2004 is when we thought of the transplantation and that’s when we went to India,” Gitau recalled.
His mother was supposed to be the first donor but it was established that one of her kidneys was smaller. His father donated his kidney but after a while, he also developed kidney complications, went for dialysis for a year and eventually succumbed.
His dad’s kidney on his body however failed after working only worked for 3 hours.
“The second donor was my brother after my dad’s kidney failed and they tried resuscitating it. He came while we were still in India, they did tests and he was compatible but it lasted for 6 hours,”Gitau narrated.
While in ICU, he however developed high great fever and deep thrombosis that almost ruined the kidney. It was however resuscitated at worked for 7 months.
Finally he got his sister’s kidney which was the best among the three he had received but the fate was the same and it failed after a month.
Back in 2007, a doctor informed him that he only has 3 months to live but it is now 15 years down and he is still pressing on.
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