Living Again: A Story of Dialysis and Recovery

When Ger­ald wasn’t feel­ing well on his birth­day in Novem­ber 2023, his wife, Therese, could sense some­thing was deeply wrong. They had known for months that his kid­ney func­tion was declin­ing, but nei­ther of them antic­i­pat­ed how quick­ly things would escalate.

What fol­lowed was a ter­ri­fy­ing stretch of weeks. Ger­ald was hos­pi­tal­ized with kid­ney and lung fail­ure, placed on a ven­ti­la­tor, and start­ed on dial­y­sis. While he was in the hos­pi­tal, Rishi Ghanekar, MD, nephrol­o­gist and hos­pi­tal­ist with Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG), began work­ing to uncov­er the root cause of Gerald’s illness.

After a series of tests and a kid­ney biop­sy, Ger­ald was diag­nosed with micro­scop­ic polyangi­itis — a rare autoim­mune dis­ease that attacks small blood ves­sels, often affect­ing the kid­neys and lungs.

Fol­low­ing his dis­charge, Ger­ald began in-cen­ter dial­y­sis, which he con­tin­ued for near­ly five months, three times a week. Though the treat­ment helped man­age his dis­ease, his qual­i­ty of life suffered.

“While I’m incred­i­bly thank­ful for that treat­ment — it kept me alive — I was real­ly strug­gling with it,” he said. ​“After every ses­sion, I felt sick and nau­seous. Just when I’d start to feel bet­ter, it was time for the next treatment.”

That’s when the cou­ple learned about peri­toneal dial­y­sis (PD), a home-based treat­ment option offered by QMG. Though uncer­tain at first, they met with Laikyn M., a dial­y­sis reg­is­tered nurse at QMG.

“We hon­est­ly didn’t know much about it at first. We were skep­ti­cal. But then we got a call from Laikyn at QMG and decid­ed to come in and meet with her. I told Therese, ​‘Let’s just hear what they have to say,’” Ger­ald said.

Peri­toneal dial­y­sis (PD) is a method of remov­ing waste and excess flu­id from the blood when the kid­neys can no longer do so. Unlike tra­di­tion­al hemodial­y­sis, which typ­i­cal­ly takes place at a clin­ic using a machine to fil­ter the blood, PD can be done at home using the body’s nat­ur­al processes.

After meet­ing with Laikyn, they quick­ly real­ized it was the right option for them. 

“With­in 10 – 15 min­utes, we were com­plete­ly con­vinced,” Ger­ald said. ​“The pro­fes­sion­al­ism of the team, the knowl­edge they shared — it put us at ease. We quick­ly real­ized that not only was this an option, it was the right one for us. I went from won­der­ing if we should do it to ask­ing when we could start.”

The change, the cou­ple said, was imme­di­ate — and remarkable.

“Once he start­ed home dial­y­sis, the dif­fer­ence was incred­i­ble,” Therese said. ​“He wasn’t sick after treat­ments any­more. We could do the treat­ments at night, which gave him the next day back. It gave us our life back.”

The cou­ple had a strong sup­port sys­tem at QMG, includ­ing not only Laikyn, but also Dr. Ghanekar; Dan Evans, MD, FACP, nephrol­o­gist; Ash­ley H., dial­y­sis reg­is­tered nurse; Ang­ie Z., dial­y­sis coor­di­na­tor and reg­is­tered dietit­ian; and Shari R., social worker.

“The sup­port from QMG’s dial­y­sis depart­ment was incred­i­ble. It wasn’t one per­son — it was a net­work,” Ger­ald said.

One of the biggest ben­e­fits? They could trav­el again — some­thing they had missed deeply.

“The sys­tem is portable, so we didn’t have to try to coor­di­nate treat­ment cen­ters in dif­fer­ent cities. We just packed the equip­ment and went. We could live our life again,” Ger­ald said.

Today, Ger­ald no longer needs dial­y­sis. His kid­neys have recov­ered enough that his catheter was recent­ly removed.

“I’m off dial­y­sis now,” he said. ​“I believe the rea­son I was able to stop is because the home dial­y­sis didn’t com­plete­ly take over for my kid­neys. It sup­port­ed them while they healed. My kid­ney func­tion grad­u­al­ly improved, and now I’m doing okay with­out it.”

Ger­ald and Therese know that PD isn’t the right fit for every­one — but they want peo­ple to know it’s worth exploring.

“When peo­ple hear the word ​‘dial­y­sis,’ they’re scared. And I get it — it’s over­whelm­ing,” Ger­ald said. ​“But you do have choic­es. For us, this was the right one.”

They rec­og­nize that everyone’s jour­ney is dif­fer­ent, but they hope their expe­ri­ence brings hope to oth­ers fac­ing a sim­i­lar experience.

“It wasn’t just about stay­ing alive — it was about liv­ing,” Ger­ald said. ​“It gave us hope. It gave us life. And we’re just incred­i­bly grateful.”

To learn more about the QMG Dial­y­sis Cen­ter, click here.