WEST LEBANON — Other than fatigue, Antwan Drew, who works nights as a janitor, said he doesn’t have any symptoms of the chronic kidney disease he was first diagnosed with last year.
“I had no idea I had it,” said the 35-year-old Drew, who lives in West Lebanon.
Diabetes and high blood pressure are common causes of kidney failure — which occurs when kidneys aren’t filtering blood effectively — but Drew said they don’t apply in his case. Familial causes can’t be ruled out; there doesn’t seem a history of the disease on his mother’s side, but he’s not sure about his father’s, he said.
Since his diagnosis last September, Drew said he’s worked to manage the disease through nutrition, by avoiding foods high in sodium, potassium and phosphorous. He most misses French fries, chips and cherry Coke, which has added phosphorous, he said. He also doesn’t drink alcohol or smoke.
“I try to stay away from anything that can harm my health,” he said.
Despite these efforts, Drew’s kidney function has deteriorated further so that he’s now seeking a new kidney.
“(I was) not supposed to worry about this until I was in my 60s,” he said. “Something changed within a year.”
Drew is one of about 15%, or 37 million, Americans who are estimated to have kidney disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nine in 10 people who have the disease don’t know that they do, according to the CDC.
Many people with the disease, like Drew, don’t display obvious symptoms. Doctors assess kidney function through blood and urine tests.
“It’s as easy as getting your annual physical,” said Dr. Michael Daily, Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s section chief of transplant surgery.
If caught early, kidney failure can sometimes be delayed or even prevented through nutrition, managing blood pressure or taking medication to address specific kidney problems, Daily said.
Surgeons at D-H have so far transplanted about 30 kidneys this year, Daily said. They typically do 50 a year, but Daily said they were short a surgeon last year so they fell short of that mark. They hope to get back up to that level next year, he said.
Kidneys are currently the only organ transplanted at D-H, but Daily said they plan to begin performing pancreatic transplants, which he expects will be helpful for people with diabetes whose pancreases aren’t effectively producing insulin.
About 750,000 people in the U.S. have end stage renal failure, according to the Kidney Project at the University of California, San Francisco. And about 100,000 people are on the waiting list for a transplant, including 50 at D-H alone, Daily said. While they wait, patients manage the disease through dialysis, a process in which a machine cleans the blood.
“The extent of kidney disease in New Hampshire and in the U.S. is underappreciated,” Daily said.
Often patients must wait five years for a transplant, he said. While they wait, they must undergo dialysis three to five times per week.
Donors must be healthy adults, Daily said. Even if they aren’t a match for a particular patient, donors can start a chain that would allow kidneys to go to other people in need across the country, he said.
“It’s a way you can really help people,” Daily said.
Drew is not yet on dialysis. Ideally, he said, he would like to avoid it by finding a donor quickly. He said he’ll soon be going through testing at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon to determine if he’s healthy enough to accept a new kidney.
In the meantime, he continues to work and picks up his 6-year-old daughter Keira from first grade at Mount Lebanon Elementary School every day.
His condition is taking an emotional toll on his loved ones. His mother and grandmother, who live in Virginia, call him regularly to check in, he said. His mother, Brenda Zamora, who he said is “very spiritual” tells him she’s “having chest pains for you.”
Drew’s fiancee Jessica Lauzon took to Facebook last week in hopes of finding a living donor for Drew who “needs to get a transplant to live,” she said on Wednesday.
“Please we ask everyone to spread the word and or consider being a donor,” Lauzon wrote in her post. “This will forever change our lives.”
Information about becoming a donor is available online at dartmouth-hitchcock.org/transplantation/become-living-kidney-donor.html or by calling (603) 653-3931.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
