JOPLIN, Missouri — March is National Kidney Month, which provides an opportunity to highlight kidney disease and its impact on patients in the doctor’s office and in their daily lives.
“My father underwent dialysis for six years. He started with one day per week, then three, and sometimes that wasn’t enough,” said Melody Dickey, the daughter of a kidney patient.
Greg Dickey was one of more than 35 million Americans suffering from kidney disease.
“It was extremely difficult because it is a four or five-hour job, three days a week, and that is your life. You go to dialysis, come home to rest, and then it’s time to go to bed, where you take the second date as he did every other day.
So he had the day in between to rest, and by the time he was rested, it was time to return to dialysis,” Melody Dickey explained.
Melody, his daughter, describes how it became a routine in her father’s life for six years before he died of his condition.
“It’s very difficult, especially near the end of his life; it was all he could do to even get to dialysis. Melody Dickey said, “It was just too hard.”
She adds that the dialysis staff became like family to him during his treatment.
“They always sent him home with sandwiches or protein shakes and like things like that,” Melody Dickey, his mother, said.
Greg also received help from the Freeman Dialysis Patient Assistance Fund.
Previously, that was the focus of fundraisers such as the “March O’ The Kidney.”
“It’s a wonderful cause, but you don’t truly understand it until you see it in person. “It’s amazing, and the fund is fantastic,” Melody Dickey said.
