Understanding the Patient Experience

What is it like to be on dialysis? Have you ever really stopped to think about the challenges a person with kidney disease faces each day? Think about what your life would be like if out of nowhere you had to be in the dialysis center 3 days a week for 5–6 hours—once you factor in treatment time, wait time, and travel time. Then when you count in the common problem of fatigue after treatment, you can start to see the extreme impact standard dialysis has just on a person’s time.

Consider this…
3 treatments a week X 6 hours (treatment time, wait time, travel time, etc.) X 52 weeks = 936 hours a year. Now, let’s take it one step further. 936 hours/40 hours = 23 full-time work weeks! Can you imagine giving up nearly 23 weeks a year of your full-time work?!

Dialysis affects other aspects of life, too, like:

• Family
• Relationships (including sex lives and being able to have children)
• Emotional well-being
• Finances
• Work
• School
• Caring for children
• Travel/Vacations