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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 have been married for 10 years, and together we have a 7-year-old daughter who is Daddy’s Girl in every possible way, and a 5-year-old son who is my forever adventure buddy! We also have 4 angel babies 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?

In January 2024 I started experiencing constant pounding headaches, muscle cramps, body itching, fatigue, exhaustion, and constant trips to the restroom. Nothing Tylenol wouldn't help with; until it stopped helping. One day I was feeling so exhausted I decided to go into the ER. Lab work and other testing was done and come to find out my kidneys had failed. The news hit me like a ton of bricks. My kidney function was at a 9% and I had no other treatment option than to start dialysis immediately. When the kidneys no longer function properly, waste products and toxins build up into the bloodstream and disrupt so many bodily functions. Dialysis is often the treatment of choice to make up for some of those essential functions. I was admitted into the hospital that same night and had a surgery to insert a central venous catheter (CVC). A CVC is a long flexible tube that is inserted into a large vein (usually; and in my case; 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.

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). 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. Come August of 2025 peritoneal dialysis was no longer clearing my body of excess fluids and toxins and once again I had to go back to hemodialysis. I now do dialysis through a neck CVC 5 times a week for 4 hours a day. Just like when I was first diagnosed.

Self Introduction

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