Sharmayne Dee

I was thinking to myself like, "That would just be awful, to go into the room and put your dialysis bag on the hook. And then he shuts the door-- and you know, he- you know, changing every fluid in him." And then I remember like, "Dad, let's go to the movie." And he was like, "How long is the movie?" Because I don't know how long- how often you have to change your dialysis, I think it's like every two hours, and so-or maybe three hours. I don't know, it depends. So I'm thinking to myself, "Man, Dad can't just sit in a movie theater and watch a movie with us because he's thinking, 'I need to change my dialysis' the whole time."

…they do a really good process. They do a health screen on you, and they say, "Yes, you're a match." And I go through the whole health screening process, and I found out I'm very healthy. I'm like, "Oh yay, I'm healthy." Like, great. Well, do I say I'm healthy, and bye? Because they always give you an option to opt-out, you know. Like, "If you're not comfortable with this, you can opt-out…” In this time, going through all of this-- and then, they have to- you have to see a therapist to make sure that you're mentally stable to handle this. And at the time I got checked, I got cleared. I'm mentally stable… I feel like [university] did a really good job of educating me 100%...the the education process, like, "Okay, this is what's going to happen. This is how the surgery is." And then, once you are educated, they said, "We're going to contact you for all the testing," so I was really impressed, like, they got all my blood work-- I mean, I think it was like 18 blood drawns. You know, like, you just sat there and they're just drawing your blood. And I was like, "Oh my goodness." And then, they're like, "Okay, your blood is drawn. We're going to do this next. You're going to go see the heart department." So then, you go see if your heart is great. After the heart, they go, "Okay, we're going to do a scan on you…And they were really good about making this whole day, so you don't go back multiple times…I was very like, "Wow. I'm impressed with this whole kidney process." And then, they really answer all your questions…And then, that social worker is always there to answer your questions, so I loved that.

So I have cats, and I'm definitely a cat person. And I definitely had a dog too. So they know something's going on with you. But the dogs, they jump on you, you know, so like, he didn't really know I was in pain. But my cats knew, and they like- they laid by me and they comfort me. So I feel like pet therapy is definitely a thing, you know. And I-I was so grateful for them because they definitely bring my stress level-- even now…they're there for me, you know. And I'm like, "Oh my goodness, like- I just need to cuddle with you." And, the- you know, they're there to cuddle. So I sup- definitely, 100%, just maybe rent out a cat because cats are so goodly, and they'll give you like, the-the little stress relief that you need.