Dialysis Lemonade or Lemons
by Kadra Williams
Sometimes, hope is all a person has when they are going through a change in their life. Life without hope can break you or make you. Presently, I've been on dialysis for the last twenty-two years. I have chosen to live a life filled with hope, and God as the center of my being. Each of us has a purpose in life. Until it has been fulfilled, change will not take place. I remember when I was given the shocking news that my kidneys were not working and I would have to undergo dialysis. So many emotions overwhelmed my hope of living, but I was determined to keep it moving. I was twenty-nine years old, a newlywed in college, with a good job, when I learned that my right kidney never developed and my left kidney wasn't working. “How do I deal with this situation?” I thought. My first reaction was to call my mother, but she was just as broken as I was.
On June 11, 1993, after receiving counseling from a social worker, doctors, the dietitian and a former patient named Ruby, I began to write my journey. "Dialysis will make you feel better. You can still have fun, live and party,” said Ruby. Believing these words of encouragement, I soon accepted the things I couldn't change and appreciated the things I could change. With these virtues in place, and from the human side, I wondered if life would ever be like lemonade again, or would it continue to just be a bowl of lemons.
On February 11, 1994, a year after receiving the news that my kidneys weren't working, my sister Gail give me one of her kidneys. Two years later in 1996, the kidney failed. I had to return to dialysis. In October, my grandmother passed and within two months I learned that I was pregnant. On April 19, 1997, six months later, I gave birth to a 12 inch, 1 lb. 9 oz. baby boy, named Jabari Immanuel. I was very happy and excited. Jabari’s birth lifted my faith to a hope beyond imaginable. The story about my pregnancy was published in a kidney magazine, in 1998, and on the front page of my hometown newspaper. That same year, a young woman from New York City read my story and decided to contact my social worker, so that she might speak to me concerning my pregnancy. After several minutes of corresponding, she expressed to me that she was expecting a baby, but her doctor advised her to terminate the pregnancy for fear that the child would be disabled. Like me, she kept hope and God as her focus and baby Dillon was born that year.