I had been sick all my life

It happened first when I was still very very young when my neighbor told my mother to send me to the hospital because I was crying a lot, and I mean a lot. I of course cannot remember it but I suspect it today as part of an anxiety due to an impending kidney disease. But tests revealed first that I had a mild epilepsy which made me at times lose consciousness especially when I get hurt then I would woke up on my mother's lap while she was crying.

So I get treated in Manila where every 3 months we go to the UST hospital where sometimes I get the EEG exam which reveals that I have some anomalies on the back side of my brain. I did also take Phenobarbital until my mother and I decided to stop going to the doctor at mid 90's. Taking epilepsy medication also made me suffer clinical depression.

Growing up is also hard as I have a much weaker body then my classmates and friends but my mental well-being is also affected by anxiety. Then in late 80's I was showing signs of hypertension as headaches with vomiting are so common during those years which I thought was normal.

1992 was the years that I was starting to get fever with chills which are signs of kidney infection. My urine at first made a color of tea which means that it had blood that came from the kidneys and it made the bottom of our toilet bowl ruined. My urine also formed a foam which means that I was throwing out protein and facial and leg edema showed its signs.

1994 I had a bad infection that it made my lymph node on my neck so swollen that I got so unrecognizeable. My mother sent me to Manila with the help of our neighbor. My infection was treated and my body's edema too temporarily corrected. My deteriorating body just made me more weak but I was able to go college after that since it was near the end of my high school.

Come college days I was able to finish one year of it and then stopped as my father went home abroad. During those times my mother pushes me to drink, I mean drink a lot of herbal drinks that she boils and then some water. It made the tips of my fingers get cracked plus a diet of near zero salt believing that all of that is good for me.

I rested from college for one year and got back. The physical education is too tasking for me already and it made me worry that next semester we were going to do basketball which means running and it prompted me plus my degrading grades and the anxiety that I am experiencing to stop going to school just like that.

I went to my grandmother for a vacation for a few months still sick with insomnia. Went home, seen a Nephrologist in Manila, told me that I will not get a treatment because I have a liver infection, went back and forth but I was just given with vitamins for two years so we stopped going. 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 So sickly years where there are bouts of high creatinine where I just vomit.

My mother and I went to the nephrologist here in our province late 2001. We got a workup thinking that my kidney still had a chance. But before that I had a blood transfusion of four bags of blood. It busted my kidneys for good as I cannot produce normal urine anymore but I lasted for two weeks after that.

December 2001, I had a catheter placed and got my first dialysis.