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“I have to admit I was ready to give up. My health was getting worse and I was spending a lot of time in the hospital. There was a time when the doctors didn’t think I was going to make it and I was ready to go,” the 65-year-old Martin said. “My daughter convinced me that I had a lot to live for and that if I didn’t want to live for myself, I had to do it for my grandkids.”
Martin, a former correctional officer, was a longtime trainer with the Amherst CIBC Wood Gundy Ramblers. But his health started to deteriorate several years to the point he could no longer walk, was having difficulty breathing and was in heart failure.
He started seeing a specialist in Moncton four years ago, but his condition continued to deteriorate. He was putting on weight as his body filled with fluid. He couldn’t walk a few feet with running out of energy and had so many ulcers on his legs that walking anywhere was torture.
“I remember going to outpatients one night and I thought I wasn’t going to make it. Dr. (Brian) Ferguson was on call that night and he bluntly told me that I wasn’t dying on his watch. He said I was in congestive heart failure and immediately sent me by ambulance to see a specialist,” Martin said.
Martin said he never knew his kidneys were in bad shape and assumed the fluid retention was because of the medication he was on for his lungs. He said doctors always told him he had to stop eating so much, but he wasn’t eating very much. He was so full of fluid that it was coming out through his skin.
Being in diabetes-related kidney failure, Martin’s prognosis wasn’t good. However, once he started dialysis he started feeling better and the fluid started being flushed from his body.
“I started last June and I have admit that I was a little nervous about it,” he said. “I knew people who were on dialysis and some who didn’t make it. I remember Dwight Jones’ wife and Norman Lee were on dialysis and I was afraid.”
He goes to Moncton three times a week for five hours of dialysis. He passes the time watching television or snoozing.
Martin said staff in the dialysis unit at the Georges Dumont Hospital in Moncton have been wonderful and he’s come to know a number of patients who have benefitted from the Kidney Foundation.
March 12 is World Kidney Day. The Kidney Foundation is encouraging everyone to drink a glass of water to celebrate their kidneys.
For the body to work properly, it must contain the right amount of water. One of the important jobs of the kidneys is to remove excess water from the body or to retain water when the body needs more.
One in 10 Canadians has kidney disease. Millions more are at risk and each day an average of 15 people are told their kidneys have failed.
The two leading causes of kidney failure are diabetes and renal vascular disease, including high blood pressure.
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Twitter: @ADNdarrell
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