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Self Introduction

First off, I would like to thank you for taking an interest in my story and taking a little bit of your time to find my website. I have created this site as a way to share my story and in the hopes of sharing knowledge about kidney donation, more specifically live kidney donation. My end goal is with God’s help to find a living donor and have a better chance of a longer, fuller, richer life.

I will start off with an introduction and a short narrative of how I ended up where I am today. My name is Daniel Melendez. I am 33 years old, and I live in New Mexico. I have a wife with whom I will celebrate our 10-year anniversary in June of this year, and together we have a 6-year-old daughter who is Daddy’s Girl in every possible way, and a 4 year old son who is my forever adventure buddy! We also have 4 angel children whom God decided was best to keep with him and took them all at 6 weeks gestation. In February of 2024 I was diagnosed with end stage renal failure. CKD stage 5.

How did I find out I had renal failure?

A trip to the ER changed my life entirely and shook me to my core. Imagine having constant headaches, muscle cramps, constantly needing to use the restroom, and overall not feeling yourself. I initially thought these were all symptoms that could be taken care of with a Tylenol or more hours of sleep, but I was wrong. One day I was feeling so exhausted and so tired and my symptoms were at their worse that I decided to go into the ER. I went in thinking I would maybe be extremely dehydrated and would be out in a couple of hours and I would get on with my life as normal. Big surprise, I received completely unexpected news and my life took a complete turn from that day forward. Being in the ER I had nurses coming in, I had blood samples taken, urine samples taken and my health history being noted down. And I remember sitting in the room thinking I’m going to be late to work if I don’t get treated and discharged soon. Shortly after, a nurse comes in and says some of my labs came back looking abnormal, but she would get the doctor to come talk to me about it. I was still just thinking oh maybe I’m low on some vitamins or something. So the Dr. comes in and says my lab work results are back and my kidney function is at 9% and that I am not leaving the hospital. I am being admitted to the hospital and I am going to be further evaluated on my kidney failure. WHAT?! Not knowing exactly what that means or how to take those news I looked over to my wife who was with me and she started asking all the questions. Essentially, my kidneys had failed, they were working at only 9% of their capability, my blood was full of toxins, and I needed to start dialysis immediately if I wanted to save my life.

Of course I wanted to save my life, but being thrown a whole mountain of information on kidney failure and dialysis and having to make life saving decisions in the hospital in such a short amount of time was definitely also mentally exhausting. Thankfully with all the professional staff’s help I was able to comprehend the fact that dialysis was the only treatment available for my condition and the only choice I really had to keep me alive. I was in the hospital for a total of 10 days and within those 10 days I had 4 round of dialysis. I have been on dialysis from there on. Initially I was having hemodialysis treatment done through a central venous catheter (CVC). This is where a CVC is inserted into a large vein (usually the jugular) in the neck and threaded to a side of the heart. The CVC is then secured in place right under the skin with sutures. The CVC has two openings. One is used to draw blood and send it to the dialysis machine to be filtered of waste and toxins that the kidneys no longer remove, and the other opening is used to return the clean blood back to my body. Once I was released from the hospital I continued getting hemodialysis treatment at my local dialysis clinic. I would go through my treatment for 4 hours a day, 3 times a week. In May of 2024 I had my CVC removed and started peritoneal dialysis. Peritoneal dialysis is where a catheter is implanted into the abdomen. This catheter then connects to a machine that allows dialysis fluid to fill the abdomen, waste products and excess fluid from my blood passes into the dialysis fluid and then the fluid is drained back out through the machine. I do this treatment every day for 9 or 10 hours straight.

Self Introduction

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