Dialysis-mates unite to aid other patients

Chennai: For three years, they discussed cricket, cracked jokes about their kidneys and welcomed people into their room with a tired smile. They were oblivious to the contraptions attached to their bodies, the masks that muffled them and the white-coats who hovered around. And then, one day , one of them failed to show up.

“We felt something sink when we found the bed next to us empty ,“ recalled Ananth Pagadala, who has been battling with kidney-related problems for more than two decades. Until then, the thought of death hadn't really hit him, Vinod Krishnan or Babu Ganesh, who Ananth calls his “dialysis mates“. “Death was just a passing thought. The stories we traded kept us alive,“ he said. Babu had been moved two loors below where his life hung in the balance. “I couldn't eat, I couldn't talk, I could barely move,“ said the mild-mannered doctor, who was once an organ trans plant coordinator for Apollo Hospitals.

Babu survived. And so did Ananth, a businessman, and Vinod, who has taken a break from work after he underwent a cadaver kidney transplant two years ago.

The trio have now started an initiative to invite other people suffering from kid ney problems to tell their tales of survival.

It began as a WhatsApp group with just the three of group with just the three of them in 2015. “We tracked each other's progress, and provided support if someone was emotionally low,“ said Vinod, who had to wait for fi ve years before he got a donor kidney . Soon, more people joined the group to share their stories.

“Expense is a huge problem for dialysis patients.We decided to create a group of kidney patients to cater to the needs of others in similar situations,“ said Ananth, who works in a Mylapore office with Vinod. “We need to figure out how best to manage our lives with the disease.Having a kidney disease is not the end of your life. Mine has just begun,“ said Babu.

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