I was quiet that day as I made my way from the hospital home. I was considering the implications of the information the doctor had just dropped on my laps like hot coal.
My kidneys were failing?
Lots of things went through my mind at that point.
From the little I knew, one needs lots of funds to deal with serious health issues like this. I was more than comfortable financially but I didn’t know if my finances were going to withstand the weight of this new expenses.
Also, with the state of the health sector in the country, it was safe enough to assume that getting cured of kidney disease was going to be a serious uphill battle.
I prayed for strength because I knew I was going to need more than I currently possessed at that time.
I met with the doctor I was referred to who explained to me that there are people who get this syndrome without having underlying health issues. According to the doctor, “One in hundred thousand people in the world without previous health issues get diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome.”
Informing family members and other trusted associates led me to receive unsolicited speculations about the cause of my kidney failing. Top on the list was that I had been “attacked by a demon”.
I’ve always been a firm believer in the fact that the devil only attacks one’s greatest weakest point and I guessed at that time, my weakest point were my kidneys. I know I had deprived my kidney of the most important thing they needed to function well: water.
I started treatment immediately.
Encouragers
By its nature, kidney failure orchestrates a lot of relationship failure. So, if you are diagnosed of kidney failure or chronic kidney disease (CKD), brace up for the worst of experiences. At the end of the day, it is just going to be you and God alone if your spouse doesn’t have lot of staying power.
I knew a gentleman who was wealthy. He was a businessman. He took special care of his family. His wife and children went on vacation abroad flying business class twice a year.One day, he got a report that changed everything in his life and family. He was diagnosed of end-stage chronic kidney disease.
He started dialysis early 2020 during COVID-19. His kidneys had shut down. No thanks to COVID-19, businesses also shut down. He started to finance his thrice a week dialysis with his savings and earnings on investments. Regardless of whatever anyone says about “affordable cost” of dialysis, you will be required to spend between one hundred and fifty thousand naira and two hundred thousand naira every week on dialysis. This amounts to an average amount of seven hundred and fifty thousand naira every month on dialysis. If you factor the cost of weekly laboratory tests and medications into the expenditure on treating CKD, you shall be needing at least a million naira monthly to be on the “safe side”.
The wealthy man who came down with CKD during the early days of COVID-19 in 2020 soon exhausted his investments. He started eating deep into his capital. Having spent so much money on dialysis for two years, he could no longer live up to the expectations of his wife and children. His wife, due to incessant lateness and absence from work, lost her job. Exactly two years after the man began dialysis, his family had experienced financial paralysis. In the twenty sixth month of receiving weekly dialysis, the man returned to an empty home from the clinic one day. His wife and children had gone with all the valuables in the house, including two cars.
He wept as much as his strength could carry him. Two weeks later, the man died. He couldn’t encourage himself in the Lord.
The journey to recovery from kidney failure requires an extremely closer walk with God. If you can encourage yourself in the Lord like David did in 1 Samuel 30:1-5, you have a good chance of living longer.
In my own case, my “best friend” and “son in the Lord” was the first person to shoot me on my back. I confided in him about my diagnosis as soon as I was told about Nephrotic Syndrome. He went to town to do everything that would hasten my death. He concocted lies like an alchemist against me. He mobilized hundreds of people against me. He once boasted to some people that I would die before the end of year 2014.
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