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Kamal Shah
Hello, I'm Kamal from Hyderabad, India. I have been on dialysis for the last 13 years, six of them on PD, the rest on hemo. I have been on daily nocturnal home hemodialysis for the last four and half years. I can do pretty much everything myself. I love to travel and do short weekend trips or longer trips to places which have dialysis centers. Goa in India is a personal favorite. It is a great holiday destination and has two very good dialysis centers.
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Sunday, 11 March 2012 23:09
If you can't practice, preach
Sorry for upturning the dictum but I have found this to be true in many cases. If you are unable to practice something you should, if you start telling everyone around you how important it is, it often goads you to do the same yourself!
This works, trust me!
Ever since I stopped swimming due to the infamous Porphyria Cutanea Tarda, I have been bad at exercising. I started walking close to home every day but ended up stopping that as well. There would be some reason or the other. No time. Have a cough. Need to rush to work. Did not dialyze yesterday, so have extra fluid in my body, so cannot exercise. I would use a new excuse everyday to not exercise and all of them worked!
Then yesterday I met a friend over dinner. The topic of discussion moved to exercise and eating habits. I started lecturing him on the importance of exercise, about how thirty minutes every day could save him from heart disease. A little into the conversation it struck me. Was I exercising? Oops!
This morning when I woke up, I had all the excuses ready. I had a sore throat. I had to rush to work. I did not dialyze yesterday. But I made a firm decision. No matter what, I was going to do something today. I went for a walk despite all the odds. At the end of it, I felt really good and decided to continue this no matter what!
This works, trust me!
Ever since I stopped swimming due to the infamous Porphyria Cutanea Tarda, I have been bad at exercising. I started walking close to home every day but ended up stopping that as well. There would be some reason or the other. No time. Have a cough. Need to rush to work. Did not dialyze yesterday, so have extra fluid in my body, so cannot exercise. I would use a new excuse everyday to not exercise and all of them worked!
Then yesterday I met a friend over dinner. The topic of discussion moved to exercise and eating habits. I started lecturing him on the importance of exercise, about how thirty minutes every day could save him from heart disease. A little into the conversation it struck me. Was I exercising? Oops!
This morning when I woke up, I had all the excuses ready. I had a sore throat. I had to rush to work. I did not dialyze yesterday. But I made a firm decision. No matter what, I was going to do something today. I went for a walk despite all the odds. At the end of it, I felt really good and decided to continue this no matter what!
... http://www.kamaldshah.com/2012/03/if-you-can-practice-preach.html
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Saturday, 10 March 2012 23:52
Key to a perfect dialysis session
When I would dialyze in a hospital, I would always hope that I would be able to sleep through most of the session. When you sleep through, it is a great way to get rid of the time that it takes. It can be horribly boring otherwise. Many people suggested watching a movie or reading a book or ugh, working! These things never worked for me. The main reason for this was that the rate at which blood was being pulled out of my body, was being cleaned and was being returned made me feel like a small piece of cloth in a washing machine. It was as if I was being tossed and thrown around, squeezed and then twisted again and again.
Except that it wasn't! I just felt that way in the head. So, to watch a movie and all was impossible. I just never felt like doing anything. I would just hope the damn thing would finish soon. That is why, when I would sleep for at least a 2-3 hours on the session, I would feel really good. That much less time to kill!
A perfect dialysis session in my opinion therefore is one where you can sleep through most of it. When I see someone asleep on dialysis, it feels really nice. I feel like making sure that there is absolutely no noise around so that this blissful state is not disturbed at all. Of course, many people not on dialysis do not realize the importance of this. So, they go about their daily chores without a care. They will shout out loud to their colleagues. They will wake the person up just to find out if he is feeling all right, not realizing that he was feeling good until they woke him up and now chances are that he will not feel as good as he was feeling!
My advice to anyone who is dealing with dialysis patients: if someone is sleeping on dialysis, unless you have a compelling reason to do so, DON'T WAKE HIM UP!
Except that it wasn't! I just felt that way in the head. So, to watch a movie and all was impossible. I just never felt like doing anything. I would just hope the damn thing would finish soon. That is why, when I would sleep for at least a 2-3 hours on the session, I would feel really good. That much less time to kill!
A perfect dialysis session in my opinion therefore is one where you can sleep through most of it. When I see someone asleep on dialysis, it feels really nice. I feel like making sure that there is absolutely no noise around so that this blissful state is not disturbed at all. Of course, many people not on dialysis do not realize the importance of this. So, they go about their daily chores without a care. They will shout out loud to their colleagues. They will wake the person up just to find out if he is feeling all right, not realizing that he was feeling good until they woke him up and now chances are that he will not feel as good as he was feeling!
My advice to anyone who is dealing with dialysis patients: if someone is sleeping on dialysis, unless you have a compelling reason to do so, DON'T WAKE HIM UP!
... http://www.kamaldshah.com/2012/03/key-to-perfect-dialysis-session.html
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Friday, 09 March 2012 22:03
Ignorance about basic dialysis concepts
A dialysis patient came to meet me a couple of days back. She has been on dialysis for a couple of years now. She came to ask me about my opinion on Peritoneal Dialysis. Those who've been reading this blog for a bit now probably know my bias towards PD and I explained that dialysis modality is strictly a matter of personal preference and I preferred PD.
We got around to discussing a number of other things. I was appalled at her lack of awareness of basic dialysis concepts. For example, though she probably knew that she must drink less fluid, she had no idea about ultrafiltration that happens during dialysis, why she cramps during sessions and the concepts of fluid weight gain. She had been thinking she must eat less to reduce her weight gain between sessions as advised by the technicians. Poor girl! She was emaciated!
This really goes to show the abysmal level of education being provided by our doctors and medical professionals to dialysis patients. I was bemoaning the lack of options being provided to us. That is much more to ask for than basic education. Better education, I can guarantee will improve compliance.
You, my dear medical professional, have no right to lecture us on fluid weight gain and non-adherence to the renal diet when you don't so much as goddamned care about letting me know what we should know!
We got around to discussing a number of other things. I was appalled at her lack of awareness of basic dialysis concepts. For example, though she probably knew that she must drink less fluid, she had no idea about ultrafiltration that happens during dialysis, why she cramps during sessions and the concepts of fluid weight gain. She had been thinking she must eat less to reduce her weight gain between sessions as advised by the technicians. Poor girl! She was emaciated!
This really goes to show the abysmal level of education being provided by our doctors and medical professionals to dialysis patients. I was bemoaning the lack of options being provided to us. That is much more to ask for than basic education. Better education, I can guarantee will improve compliance.
You, my dear medical professional, have no right to lecture us on fluid weight gain and non-adherence to the renal diet when you don't so much as goddamned care about letting me know what we should know!
... http://www.kamaldshah.com/2012/03/ignorance-about-basic-dialysis-concepts.html
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Thursday, 08 March 2012 00:53
Today is World Kidney Day!
NephroPlus is organizing an awareness program for World Kidney Day.
There's going to be the launch of a book called "Protect your Kidneys" which has been co-authored by Dr. S. Krishnan, Medical Director of NephroPlus, East Marredpally Center. Dr. Gopal Kishen, Father of Nephrology of Andhra Pradesh is going to launch the book. There is also the launch of a new website on kidney disease in Telugu.
There will be talks on how to prevent kidney disease and on encouraging organ donation. There will also be a talk by a patient on dialysis (not me!).
There will be a nice dinner after this.
So, please do come and join us this evening!
... http://www.kamaldshah.com/2012/03/today-is-world-kidney-day.html
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Wednesday, 07 March 2012 07:50
I TALKED TO PRATEEKA!!!
I am so elated this evening. For months (years?) now I have been a loyal listener of RJ Prateeka on Red FM, the radio channel in Hyderabad. I have posted about her here and here before on this blog. Her show has become so popular in the city that solely due to her following, the channel has now become the number one channel in the city.
So, when we at NephroPlus decided to do a radio campaign for our Hello Kidney initiative, there was no discussion about which channel we would go for. It was obviously Red FM. We chose the same channel for all our subsequent campaigns - Aashayein, Enpidia and now World Kidney Day. I have been co-ordinating the radio campaign. And Vikram, who knows what a huge fan I am of Prateeka suggested I write to her email id and let her know about our story. I did that this morning through our contact in the channel.
This evening, suddenly I got a call from the contact in Red FM that Prateeka was on the call and would talk to me! And before I knew it, I was talking to Prateeka! I gave her a brief background about me and what we're doing at NephroPlus. I talked to her about Aashayein. The best part about it was that she was genuinely interested in what we're doing. She asked the right questions. She also remembered all our campaigns and appreciated the way we treat our patients and the things we do for preventing cross infection etc.
To be very honest, the ten or fifteen minutes I was on call with her were like a dream. I still can't believe it happened! And she invited me over to her studio! Things like this happen very rarely. You listen to the voice for such a long time on radio and the voice occupies a place very high in your mind. When you actually end up talking to the person like this, it almost seems like a dream, like it never happened! I don't know how I will react when I actually meet her!
So, when we at NephroPlus decided to do a radio campaign for our Hello Kidney initiative, there was no discussion about which channel we would go for. It was obviously Red FM. We chose the same channel for all our subsequent campaigns - Aashayein, Enpidia and now World Kidney Day. I have been co-ordinating the radio campaign. And Vikram, who knows what a huge fan I am of Prateeka suggested I write to her email id and let her know about our story. I did that this morning through our contact in the channel.
This evening, suddenly I got a call from the contact in Red FM that Prateeka was on the call and would talk to me! And before I knew it, I was talking to Prateeka! I gave her a brief background about me and what we're doing at NephroPlus. I talked to her about Aashayein. The best part about it was that she was genuinely interested in what we're doing. She asked the right questions. She also remembered all our campaigns and appreciated the way we treat our patients and the things we do for preventing cross infection etc.
To be very honest, the ten or fifteen minutes I was on call with her were like a dream. I still can't believe it happened! And she invited me over to her studio! Things like this happen very rarely. You listen to the voice for such a long time on radio and the voice occupies a place very high in your mind. When you actually end up talking to the person like this, it almost seems like a dream, like it never happened! I don't know how I will react when I actually meet her!
... http://www.kamaldshah.com/2012/03/i-talked-to-prateeka.html
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