A Fieldale man is hoping to find a living kidney donor and regain some of the independence he has lost to kidney failure.
Michael Williams, 64, travels to Fresenius Kidney Care in Martinsville three days a week — Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays — for dialysis treatments that last 3 1/2 hours.
Williams has stage 5 renal failure, the most advanced stage of chronic kidney disease. His kidneys no longer adequately filter waste and excess fluid from his blood, leaving dialysis to perform that work.
“I was diagnosed with diabetes in my 30s and was on a pretty high dose of insulin back then,” he said.
Williams learned he had stage 3 kidney failure when he was 58.
“We increased my fluid intake and medication,” he said.
“I went back for a checkup and had skipped over stage 4 and went into stage 5 renal failure about three years ago,” he said.
Williams initially used peritoneal dialysis, or PD, a home-based treatment for kidney failure. Eventually, that treatment was no longer an option, and he began hemodialysis at home with the help of his wife, Lisa.
“My wife was my caregiver, basically,” Williams said.
In early December two years ago, Williams was hooked up to dialysis and the procedure was about to begin when he began having trouble.
“I began shivering and got really cold. After 2 1/2 days I woke up in ICU with a tube down my throat and strapped to the bed,” he said. “It turns out I basically passed away in the chair at the house.”
After that incident, Williams was required to receive dialysis at a medical facility.
“I’m in the center three days a week. It takes 3 ½ hours to get a treatment,” he said.
The treatments have significantly affected his daily life, including his ability to travel and participate in activities he enjoys with his family.
“We like to travel and we’ve done that for a long time, but that has pretty much stopped,” he said. “My life has changed so much, we can’t travel without trying to set up dialysis at different centers wherever we are going which must be set up almost a year in advance most times. That doesn’t work out most of the time.”
A kidney donation would improve his quality of life, Williams said. In short, “it would give me my life back.”
Although his wife and family would say otherwise, Williams said, “I feel like I’m a major burden on my wife and family right now, and it’s hard to deal with.”
In his profile with the NKR, he wrote that “being tired all the time makes it difficult to ride my trike or doing the community service I love doing. Being unavailable to go fishing with my grandsons or taking our granddaughter to the beach has made me feed useless sometimes. The change in my life physically and mentally is hard to deal with. I am so much less of me now.”
Williams is among the estimated 96,000 people waiting for a kidney. He is registered with the National Kidney Registry (NKR) and transplant centers at UVA Health University Medical Center in Charlottesville, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and Duke University Hospital in North Carolina.
“It takes 3 to 5 years to get a kidney,” he said, adding his insurance will pay “for everything” if someone decides to donate a kidney to him.
Williams has been a member of the Fontaine Ruritan Club for 28 years. He and his wife have two daughters and four grandchildren.
For more information, visit www.nkr.org/DMA853.
Caption:
Michael Williams and his wife, Lisa.
For more information, scan the QR code or visit www.nkr.org/DMA853.
