Dancing With God

This was passed to me by a friend who is going through very hard times of his own. How appropriate to know that we are never alone with our sickness and in time of need....

Dancing With God

When I meditated on the word Guidance, I kept seeing "dance" at the end of the word. I remember reading that doing God's will is a lot like dancing. When two people try to lead, nothing feels right.The movement doesn't flow with the music, and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky. When one person realizes that, and lets the other lead,both bodies begin to flow with the music.One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the backor by pressing Lightly in one direction or another. It's as if two become one body, moving beautifully.

The dance takes surrender, willingness,and attentiveness from one person and gentle guidance and skill from the other. My eyes drew back to the word Guidance.When I saw "G": I thought of God, followed by "u" and "i"."God, "u" and "i" dance.."God, you, and I dance." As I lowered my head, I became willing to trust that I would get guidance about my life. Once again, I became willing to let God lead.

My prayer for you today is that God's blessings and mercies are upon you on this day and every day. May you abide in God, as God abides in you. Dance together with God, trusting God to lead and to guide you through each season of your life.

-- author Unknown

Life's Little Difficulties

Happy Valentine's Day. It is a wonderful day to spend with someone you love. The weekend started out great but changed quickly. I came to the vent center to spend the weekend with my darling husband and brought the usual gifts; a candy heart, a stuffed bear and spec Valentine pajamas. He started choking on his lunch, so all food was stopped. Our lives have been turned upside-down since he got sick. Even though his basic needs are met, I am still his "caregiver". What happens when the caregiver starts needing care?

End stage renal disease and significant vision loss turned our crazy life crazier. My husband is my number one priority and I can't be there when he needs me. This ESRD really scares me. I don't mind dialysis in the least. Evveryone at the unit genuinely cares what happens to the patients. The more I read on transplantation though, the more wary I become. All I know is I love my husband more than anyone else in life. I need him and he needs me. I have to be healthy for us.

My Introduction to Kidney Failure

My name is Susan "Suzy" Parsons. I am forty-one years old, and on dialysis. Here is my story. In a nutshell, the last eight months of my life have been crazy as far as my health goes. I have been diabetic for the last twenty-four years, but really didn’t listen to my doctor. I felt good, and thought I was doing pretty good.

June 2009 rolled around and everything went to pieces at once. I started with hemorrhages in my eyes and lost a ton of vision seemingly overnight. I went to the emergency room at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia, PA and was told my retinas were becoming detached. In July, I ended up in the emergency room because I was having breathing issues and my legs were swollen and weeping. After what seemed like a zillion tests, I was told my kidneys were working at 30-40 percent, let’s put you on saline IV to help flush kidneys. Twenty-four hours later, I was in congestive heart failure. Between July and November I was hospitalized eight times with both renal failure and CHF. By that time my kidney function was only ten to 15 percent. I went in the hospital for AV fistula at the End of October. What is an AV fistula you ask? An arteriovenous (AV) fistula is an abnormal passageway between an artery and a vain created to provide access for hemodialysis in people with kidney failure. In December they wanted to start dialysis but my fistula had a blockage so they did another surgery to insert a stent so my fistula would extend. December they put in a permacath (a temporary access that does straight into your heart) and I started dialysis in the hospital the week before Christmas.

The reason I started this blog is to try to raise awareness so people get tested early in hopes of preserving kidney function. An estimated 27 million Americans have chronic kidney disease (CKD) - an average of one in seven adults. People of all backgrounds of our country are affected. The number of dialysis patients in Pennsylvania alone is more that fourteen thousand. For me what started out eight months ago as CKD quickly turned into end stage renal disease (ESRD). Because it was not diagnosed early, I must rely on dialysis three times every week for my survival unless I can get a match for a kidney transplant.

March is National Kidney Month, and I hope my story will help inspire others in our community to become educated about CKD and its risk factors. Common conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity can lead to CKD as well as some medications that are not “kidney friendly”, all of which contributed to my kidney failure. It is important that everyone is made aware so they can contact their doctor if they have one or more of these risk factors. I have just joined an organization called Dialysis Patient Citizens (www.dialysispatients.org), which provides tips for healthy living, education on CKD treatment and policies and ways to get involved with improving dialysis patients’ quality of life