Silent Warriors continued
upon patients. Those who receive dialysis
in a clinic must schedule three four-hour
sessions a week. “They have to plan their
day around dialysis instead of planning
dialysis around their day,” Ms. Wright says.
Patients’ diets also become more restricted,
and they must take more medications.
Scott & White has dialysis clinics in
Temple, Round Rock and Killeen, but
patients can choose to perform dialysis at
home. These home options include using a
sterile solution through a catheter that
patients drain after several hours. The other
option uses hemodialysis, a machine similar
to hospital-based dialysis that has been
available to patients for about five years.
This is very convenient for patients, who
often feel constrained by a strict dialysis
“With early testing
and referrals, Scott
& White is really
leading the way to
early diagnosis of
kidney disease and
detecting potential
dialysis patients.”
—Peggy Wright, RN, BSN, CPDN
schedule that includes traveling to and from
the hospital several times a week. Ms.
Wright says, “The machine is portable, so
patients can use it even while they’re on
vacation. It’s total freedom.”
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THE CATALYST Winter 10 | sw.org
Through home-based dialysis, patients
also benefit from undergoing dialysis on a
more regular basis. “It’s more like the
function of the kidneys we were born
with,” she says. “Doing daily dialysis you
don’t have the ups and downs, peaks and
valleys you get with in-center dialysis.” In
fact, patients’ blood pressure is much better
when they perform dialysis themselves at
home, and “their body chemistry is much
better,” says Dr. Narayanan.
For some patients, a kidney
transplant is needed
The other type of renal replacement
therapy is kidney transplantation. Patients
become transplant candidates if their body
is otherwise healthy enough to undergo the
rigors of surgery. A kidney transplant can
offer a better lifestyle than dialysis, says
Gregory M. Jaffers, MD, director of Scott
& White Healthcare’s Division of
Transplant Surgery. “The benefit of
transplantation is simply that patients feel
better with a functioning kidney. Plus,
there are fewer restrictions on their lives.
They are able to eat and drink in a much
more normal manner than they would be
with dialysis,” says Dr. Jaffers. “People also
live longer with transplants than if they
stay on dialysis.”
Scott & White Healthcare is a member
of UNOS (the United Network of Organ
Sharing). The team is performing up to 40
kidney transplants a year. Once approved
for kidney transplantation, potential
recipients are placed on a waiting list for a
cadaver donor or they prepare to receive a
kidney from a living donor. The second
option is becoming more popular, Dr.
Jaffers says. “The waiting list is so long that
people are finding more and more people
to come forward to donate kidneys.”
Living donors are often blood relatives,
but spouses, friends and altruistic
acquaintances also may donate their
kidneys. “We’ve had a few here,” says Dr.
Jaffers, who has performed 374 kidney
transplants at Scott & White. “In one
memorable case, a pastor gave a kidney to a
member of his church.”
The Scott & White team uses a
laparoscopic donor nephrectomy procedure.
This is a minimally invasive way of
harvesting a living donor’s kidney, making
the donor’s recovery easier.
The goal is to find the best option for a
successful transplant. The ideal kidney
donor would be an identical twin; however,
a kidney from any living donor has a better
chance for success than a deceased donor’s
kidney. Other specific criteria for a match
are involved in such cases. Either way, it is
a time when patients and families
experience a range of emotions that include