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Post by jfpierce on Feb 10, 2007 13:32:34 GMT -5
Honestly, I don't think it's productive to go down the road of who "deserves" medical treatment the most. Most adults who get kidney disease abused their kidneys. Even if they hava a family history, did they do everything they could to prevent it? Probably not. Abuse could mean giving themselves diabetes, taking painkillers everyday, or taking steroids, among many other causes.
Good thing doctors don't hold their patients up to the same standard some of you are holding Konnan up to, or 90% of people who need a transplant would never get one.
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Dr. T is an alien
Patti Mayonnaise
Knows when to hold them, knows when to fold them
I've been found out!
Posts: 31,584
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on Feb 10, 2007 14:33:34 GMT -5
I have a unique point of view on this topic matter. I was born with an extra long ureter. What that did to me is that it could not lay in my body like a normal one would. It got twisted and kinked up like a garden hose. Therefore, when my kidneys drained into my bladder, the left one couldn't drain. The urine would build up until the pressure in my kidney became high enough to force the urine through the kink, which severely damaged my kidney. I had surgery when I was 8 to prevent anymore kinking, but the damage had been done.
A couple of years ago I had a UTI that got into my funky, super-long ureter, closing it off again and damaging the kidney again. Because of the damage from when I was a kid, my left kidney is very enlarged. For those who understand human anatomy well, basically it was about the size of my liver and had an internal capacitance of at least 450 ml. I had CAT scans done, which the doctor let me see. Of this emormous kidney, only about 5% of the total mass of the kidney still functioned. The only reason why it wasn't removed then is that 5% of an enlarged and damaged kidney still functioned as well as a normal healthy kidney (seriously, I got to see the results of the urine analysis drained directly from the damaged kidney, and all levels were nominal. I didn't even see the elevated protein levels that one could reasonable expect.
My point in all of this is this: If a kidney can take enough physical damaged that it is literally inflated, destroying the function of 95% of its mass, and can still function as well as a healthy kidney, then there was some serious abuse of the kidneys going on there in these other people's cases. There are serious health disorders and bacterial and viral infections that attack kidneys voraciously enough to rapidly, or not so rapidly, kill a kidney completely. People that get these conditions get my sympathy. People who make foolish decisions that damage their organs do not. Seriously, my life was threatened twice by this twist of fate that dealt me this condition, but that doesn't upset me. It is just a thing. If I had done this to myself (like my uncle has with his liver and heart), then there would be plenty to get upset about.
Maybe I am being too judgemental, but with everyone that needs a kidney due to things not of their own doing, I really have a hard time reserving enough compassion to feel for people that abuse their bodies and put themselves in dire straits.
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Post by eDemento2099 on Feb 10, 2007 15:10:19 GMT -5
Um, booze = drugs.  you are missing the point. big difference between alcohol and drugs you lack education go troll another thread. Alcohol kills more people every year than crack, cocaine, and heroin combined, and is easily the most widely abused psychoactive drug in all the world. Just because alcohol is legal doesn't make it any less bad for people or families. Anyone who denies that alcohol is a drug is an idiot. |
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