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Volume 15 Number 15 | 50¢
April 14, 2016
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Creating support for those with kidney disease Sometimes it takes a tragedy to bring people together. Unfortunately, that seems to be the way life goes. We walk along merrily secure that life as we know it will always remain the same. Our loved ones are fine, we don’t need to worry about them, heck we don’t even need to talk to them because they are always just right where we left them… until they’re not. This kind of thing happens all too much and it takes a shakeup to show us that life is more precious and fleeting than we give it credit for. One group of people who know this more than most is the group of kidney dialysis patients that call Kamloops home. For those who don’t realize, kidney dialysis is one of the most exhaustive and life changing processes that can happen to a person. Your kidneys are imperative to your health because they prevent the build-up of wastes and extra fluid in the body, keep levels of electrolytes stable, such as sodium, potassium and phosphate, and make hormones that help regulate blood pressure, make red blood cells and help your bones stay strong. This life-sustaining job filters and returns to the bloodstream about 200 quarts of fluid every 24 hours. About two quarts are removed from the body in the form of urine and about 198 quarts are recovered. For those individuals whose kidneys cease to run need to partake in dialysis which basically means you are hooked up to a machine an average of three times per week for four hours at a time. This machine filters the toxins out of your blood and returns it to the body, essentially doing the job of your kidneys. Usually the only way you can ever get off dialysis is to get a kidney transplant in which the list is long.
(R) Mel Formanski, one of the founding organizers of the newly formed support group, and son Adam Formanski, who lives with kidney disease.
“We are starting a kidney support group for of community is gone, there are no more supanyone with kidney issues who feels that ports in place. There are a lot of areas that they would benefit from support and a group,” people with kidney issues need and appreciate explains Edna Humphries, a Kidney Founda- emotional support.” tion Board member and mother of a son with This could be as simple as you had to move kidney disease. “The dialysis patients are a into Kamloops from a more rural area for your very close knit group and once you go through treatments and you don’t have a lot of famthe transplant process, after your eight weeks, ily or friends around or after being diagnosed you return to your community and that sense with kidney disease, the stress and time com- continued on page 2
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