Ing. René Schwebel Ransenberg

WATER AND SUGAR

Two essential words that on two different occasions sent me to the hospital. Francine Kelsen, kindly invited me to tell my story for TransWeb about my life related with my kidney transplant. I accepted with great honor. She asked for a short title, what else than “Water and Sugar.” When I was a baby, my first word was agua (water), instead of Dad or Mom. In my youth, in the streets of México City, two strange women offered me some candy, by intuition I said to them -no thanks-, they asked me, are you diabetic? At that time I didn't know that word, but I answered yes, so they didn't bother me anymore. I didn't imagine the meaning of that word, A few months later, I learned the meaning of the word diabetes. I had pharyngitis, it got worse and the doctor “could not control it.” I started drinking a lot of water, and urinated it, I lost weight, had blurry vision, instead of drinking water I started to drink orange juice... I used to sleep all the time, I could not go to school, things were getting worse. My parent took me to the doctor, a otolaringologist. I don't remember why my parents took me to that doctor. In the waiting room I was sleeping all time. I passed the tests, but the doctor fortunately suspected diabetes and called an internist, who came late at night and sent me to the emergency room at the hospital, in a few more minutes I could have been in a diabetic comma... my blood sugar was 800... el azúcar (the sugar). I was at the private hospital, December 1971. I learning how to give a shot in an orange, how to mix different kinds of colored water, one represented the insulin N, the other color the R insulin. In México we didn't have plastic syringes yet, they were glass syringes. I learned how to boil them, how to check my sugar in the urine, at that time there were no blood glucose monitors, we also didn't have “sugar free” stuff. Life passed with good control of my diabetes, I never returned to the hospital. Some years later, in the doctors office, the doctor told me that I was having a “little bit of protein” in my urine test. But nothing dangerous...

Time passed and I had a normal life, I got my degree in oceanography, I worked, also I worked in big tuna boats, scuba diving, etc... Then I got married, we decided not to have children, then after five years of marriage I started to have health problems. I was having bronchitis very often, once, a new doctor gave me Cefalosporine, I had a very severe reaction to it. By that time without noticing it, my kidneys were failing, my wife picked me up from my office, and on the way home I went into shock and she stopped at the first hospital she found. I lost consciousness. A hospital guard took me inside the hospital to the emergency room. Diagnosis: kidney failure and sensitivity to Cefalosporine, that means that the kidneys cannot work any more. They cannot filter the urea, creatinine, etc... Next, a nightmare, no salt, no water, no working, weakness, etc... I only could drink the water that a cotton ball could absorb.... my favorite word agua (water) now was my enemy, diabetes (sugar) was getting out of control. Water and sugar...

In a few days my body was retaining water, but because of my diabetes I could not just drink the water of a cotton ball. I was an out of control diabetic. I was thirsty!! A few days later, I went to the emergency room at the private hospital. Dialysis for two weeks to clean the blood and to eliminate the retained water -6 gallons- in my body, lungs, and the pericardium. My future... uncertain. When coughing I fainted for a few seconds, so fast that the doctor didn't believed it... dialysis, fistula, hemodialysis machine, and the waiting list for a kidney transplant... For how many years? Once, in the dialysis room, I coughed and fainted, this time more than just for a few seconds, the nurses rubbed alcohol on me, I woke up, full of nurses, doctors, my wife, my father, what happened? There were witnesses! Now they believed me that I fainted when I cough! Diagnosis, my pericardium was full of water, so my hearth cannot pump enough blood to the brain. That was the reason I faint when I coughed. They ran me to the operating room, I went into cardiac failure in the operating room. But just for a few seconds. I was resuscitated, my "death" was very short. My life goes on. "My God, why doYou want me to stay here?" I asked. A few months later at the hemo room, I was completely healed from the heart surgery and I started asking questions to my hemo roommates, like how long they were waiting for a kidney transplant... one year, three!, eight!! twenty!!! We returned home and my wife and I cried, -so many years to receive a kidney transplant?-- connected to that awful machine? That was very expensive too, how we can pay for that? I still needed to measure the liquids I drank and urinated, salt, potassium... a nightmare. The only holiday was when I went to the hemo room, before they plugged me in I could eat whatever I wished!! Anyway, the machine could balance my blood levels.... cramps, vomiting, depression... One weekend, my wife and her sisters and I “ran away” to Acapulco, without informing my doctor, right after finishing my hemo.

One Friday, we jumped in to the car and went for a five-hour drive. My promise: no salt, no water... We returned to the hospital on monday very early to be on time in the hemo room. One gallon of water retained. "Why?" my doctor asked me. "I don't know," I said lying. My gold nurses said to me, "Did you get that tan in your bed?" I confessed to them -- is was our secret. My family could not donate a kidney to me, so I needed a cadaver donation. I needed to wait for somebody to have a brain death. It was a very long waiting list. The night of Wednesday February 6, 1990, I was crying. The phone rang, "Mr. René, bring your belongings and get a quick shower, come to the hospital, we have a kidney for you." We called a cab, and while I was taking a shower my wife called the family, there is a kidney for René! The morning of the 7th.February I had a new kidney! I just waited two months! I had a hard life, but God has helped make it easier for me! At the hospital, the doctor explained the procedures of the operation, I asked if they will take my original kidneys out. He said no. I said good bye to my family, my wife, my father, I don't know if I can make it again, I cried with my wife, goodbye my sweet... I slept... I needed that transplant, but my health was very weak. Again, I died for a second time in the operation room. But just for a few seconds. Resuscitated, my death again was very short. My life still goes on one more time. My God, why do You want me to stay here? The rest is history. Two days after I still cannot urinate, I pee a little bit in a tiny plastic cup, a few drops. The kidney is not awake yet, the doctors told me before, you had a heart operation, you are diabetic, you have bronchitis, we need to wait... The third day, I am urinating in my bed in the same tiny plastic cup, then I started urinating more and more and more! The plastic cup is overflowing!!! I cannot stop urinating! I am wetting my bed! “My” kidney woke up!. I yell with all my lungs to the nurses, I am urinating! Everybody enters my room, it's a party!! René is urinating! Urinating, a routine action, like breathing, but since that time it is a conscious act that I enjoy every day.

Eight years later I have a normal life, I can drink, and eat everything. I still follow my diabetic diet. Now-a-days I am the cofounder of a support group for people who have problems related with kidney failure and kidney transplants and to their families. We want to share our experiences, there must not be any doubt! We also are in the campaign of distributing the Organ and Tissue Donation Card. There must be more donors! We must convince the doctors that they must put in the waiting list their patients who have been newly diagnosed with a kidney failure before they put them in the dialysis program. So by that way, the suffering is less. Then when the dialysis moment is necessary the patient has already been in the waiting list maybe for many months or some years after. I am very lucky, others not so, because after many years of being on dialysis, they are still waiting for a kidney... Some will get one. Others, will die before having it. I have much luck, because my wife is at my side, I am sure she has been suffering more than me, because in all times she had to make hard decisions about me, she felt her hands were tied seeing me inbed... My advice: Get more information! And keep your Organ and Tissue Donation Card on hand. Gracias.

Ing. René Schwebel Ransenberg.

Co fundador de la Asociación Mexicana Protrasplante Renal, A.C. (AMPRAC). Co founder of the Mexican Association for Promoting the Kidney Transplant, Support Group. (AMPRAC).

deloto@enter.net.mx schwebel_rene@yahoo.com
Telfax from USA, 525 688 04 11.
México, Capital., spring 1998.

Ing. René Schwebel Ransenberg. Co fundador de la Asociación Mexicana Protrasplante Renal, A.C. (AMPRAC). deloto@enter.net.mx Telfax desde los Estados Unidos, 525 688 04 11. México, D.F., primavera 1998.

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Last modified: 11 May 2000