–woman living with diabetes, kidney failure pushing for more sensitisation programmes

TURNING back the hands of time is a dream Faye Abigail Young has long cherished, but she knows, only too well, that she cannot change the inevitable, so she’s decided to use what little time she has left on earth to be an advocate for diabetic and kidney disease patients here in Guyana.

Having experienced first-hand what it is like to live with a terminal illness, Young, since being diagnosed with diabetes in her early 30s, has become a friend, adviser, and confidante for anyone who is in need of emotional support as they navigate living with diabetes and kidney failure.

In recounting her diagnosis, Young told the Sunday Chronicle that she was overworked and had fallen ill; at the time, she’d linked her sickness to stress and exhaustion. However, after following up with a doctor’s visit, she learnt that she was diabetic, and had been living with the disease, undiagnosed, for some time.

“I did not think that it was diabetes. At the time, I thought it was just from stress; I was working from 12-16 hours, and it was very hectic, so I thought the tiredness and the fatigue was just from that,” Young said, adding:
“But then I got really sick, and I noticed that my legs started swell a bit. So I went to the doctor next door to my office, and he told me that I had to go to the hospital. So, when I was admitted to the hospital, they said that I had diabetes, and I needed insulin and everything else. So, that was a lifestyle change for me.”

Young has had several medical procedures during her lifetime; she is currently visually impaired in one eye.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), diabetes is a chronic, metabolic disease characterised by elevated levels of blood glucose (or blood sugar), which leads over time to serious damage to the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves.

In 2018, Young fell even sicker, and later found out that she had kidney failure. While she knew that her illness would put her at risk for kidney disease and other serious life-altering illnesses, she believes it was the lack of sensitisation that led to her developing kidney failure.

“One problem that I have with the medical institution is that they don’t warn you about certain things that could happen to you when you are diagnosed; they don’t explain certain things,” Young said.

For example, she said, “Being at the clinic, I’ve met patients who have no idea what being on dialysis is, and they think dialysis is a death sentence, which is not; dialysis actually saves lives. If I was not taking dialysis, I would have been dead about five years ago.”

TERMINAL ILLNESS AND MENTAL HEALTH
The cost of living with any terminal illness can be burdensome. For persons who have been diagnosed with kidney failure, it costs them almost G$180,000 monthly for dialysis treatment. This treatment is essential, and is required to be administered three times a week.

In addition to this, some patients may require medical procedures or surgeries. This adds to the stress of dealing with extreme pain, and tiresome symptoms, and so, many people develop some form of mental illness, especially depression.

“When I was first diagnosed with kidney failure and I went on dialysis, I cried for days; I was really depressed. I was in my hospital bed, and I would just cry, because I could not believe that this was happening to me,” Young said.

“I decided to become a precautionary tale; I decided that I couldn’t just lay there and do nothing, so I decided to become an advocate for kidney disease patients,” she added.
Now in her 40s, Young, through her social media platforms, has been advocating for more resources to be made readily available to patients living with kidney failure.

She told the Sunday Chronicle that social workers should be stationed at the dialysis clinics in Guyana, and is advocating for more sensitisation campaigns to be held all year round, and not only during Kidney Awareness Month.

However, some efforts are being made, and Faye, like many other dialysis patients, is looking forward to benefitting from the Government of Guyana’s budgeted financial support of dialysis patients in 2022.