A LETTER FROM ME TO YOU, TITLED: "I DIDN'T KNOW"



I Didn’t Know!
Yes! I didn’t know how important my kidneys were in order to stay alive; I didn’t know that my food choices will damage my kidneys, and I didn’t know I had Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), until I was diagnose with End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD).
Ever since, I had made a lot of changes on my life, which affected my wife and my family, that’s right! When it comes to health, the choices we make end up affecting the ones we love the most.
In order to stay alive the first choice I had to make was to choose one of the available treatments for ESRD, then I had to choose whether I will be put on the waiting list for a kidney transplant or not. But, been on dialysis is not everything, the machine will do a lot, but not all, therefore, if I wanted to stay alive, maintain a good quality life, all for the sake of my family, I have taken many new good choices, always recommended by my Nephrologist or my Dietitian.
Some of the choices I had to make are: completely changing my eating habits (choosing healthy foods), having my meals at the same hour every day, take my medication and my binders at the same hour every day, some activity several days a week.
These above mentioned choices I made, improved my health, but I have made another kind of choices in order to improve my mental health as well. Yes, body and mind should be healthy. In order to achieve a good mental state which keeps me from feeling sorry for myself, I focus on the fact that now I know why our kidneys are so important and what we can do to prevent kidney disease, and how to cope with CKD or ESRD, and I’m using my time and personal experience to share this knowledge to the most people possible, taking advantage of the internet and the social networks, I have created a blog and a face book page in English and Spanish:
My mind is now busy, focused on my message, I want people to start making good healthy choices, to take care of themselves and most of all to acquire at least some basic knowledge about CKD and ESRD prevention, detection and treatment, I don’t want anybody else to say “I DIDN’T KNOW”.

Dialysis Patient
Felix Carrizales

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