Fighting CKD

So it’s been 14 months since I’ve been…diagnosed with CKD. It stands for chronic kidney disease, the end stage of which sounds even more terrifying: chronic renal failure. The first word alone, means never-ending; renal just doesn’t sound right, like it’s not a real word at all; and, failure just spells catastrophe. And as much as I now talk about it on a lighter note, one year after I went through a battery of lab tests, the disease is as real as ever and it will not, as more and more hopeful friends had asked, just “go away.”

I take some 15 tablets of whatnots everyday, whose generic names are just too long—proof that it’s packed with all the good stuff designed to slow down the deterioration of my kidneys. At age 33, I also have to take maintenance meds, which really helped ease the terrible migraines I used to suffer from years ago and, reduced my knack for being snappish. Yes, the rumble I used to have at the slightest provocation has now been replaced with patience—a word so unfamiliar to me in my late ‘20s. On days when I forget to drink these, the world seems to be a-spinning, a quick 180-degree turn would send me walking a bit off-centered, which is tough when you’re wearing heels and skinny jeans…

I watch most everything I eat, diligently going through the nutrition labels for sodium, protein, and potassium content—three of the biggest no-no’s on the list. But I now, more than ever, enjoy what I am eating. I love the spices that replaced salt: paprika, curry, garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, and yes, even parsley. I sipped soda for maybe three times last year, hating it as soon as it touched my lips. And pork, which I just couldn’t live without before, tastes awfully weird when I sneak in a little piece (or two). But I miss eating bananas, which I used to gnaw on when I was really hungry. Oh and I still miss chips, terribly miss Tostitos.

It’s progressed significantly before it has ever been detected: we found out when I was already at Stage 4, which means I have severely reduced kidney functions. At around the same time last year, I had been a total wreck, crying over my dinner of green leaves and olive oil, wondering what I have done to deserve such luck. These days I feel I had gotten past the sadness, as if there’s nothing to it. I’ve survived the melancholy which lasted for some six months, and began taking on life as if everything was status quo. That being said, there are days still when the tiredness beats me, the stress from work and dealing with grouchy folks causing imagined aches and pains on my sides, the feeling of nausea enveloping me when I think of what is inevitable: it starts with the letter T and is right now unimaginable let alone affordable.

But I have not given up, continuing to hope my creatinine level goes down and that my next GFR readings would go up. This afternoon, somebody told me, “Miracles do happen,” to which I emphatically replied, “Everyday.” He meant one thing, that’s for sure, but to me, it meant so much more. Like a silent prayer to the heavens, I’d like to believe that it is so. I just feel so much…love lately that I have no cause but to celebrate life’s little miracles—despite CKD, and regardless of its inconveniences. Yes, sweetie, even without chips, I’spose.

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Pictured: Candy, from Happy Pills in Barcelona