Dialysis

My friend VW described recently a vivid story of liver transplantation (see http://vwswong.blogspot.com/2011/08/letter.html). Following that logic, I must consider myself not only a nephrologist but a recipient of kidney transplantation.

Nowadays, on the average, one needs to wait for around five years before a suitable kidney becomes available, and their lives could only be sustained by dialysis - not a pleasant treatment I must say. Of course, some patients do not have to wait very long; it's kind of luck. However, there are many other fellow patients who do not live long enough and leave for another universe.

And, similar to liver cirrhosis, you won't die (from uremia) with dialysis, but you still have a lot of symptoms: malaise, poor memory, hand (and buttock) itchiness, generalized swelling (if your diet compliance is no good), high blood pressure (in response to stimulation), and a foul-smelling mouth.

PS. Unlike liver transplant, there is now well defined criteria for kidney allocation. In short, it depends on your age, duration on the waiting list, as well as how well match it is between you and the organ. If there is a full match of clinical need, you jump the queue of waiting, and, on several occasions, the organ may be given to someone from another cluster.