India, in the early 2000s is a wrong place to be in, in the wrong time for someone on dialysis.
I felt this really strongly last evening when I was watching television and while switching channels came across a program that was showing the Darjeeling mountain train that was used some decades back to transport tea from the gardens up the hills to the towns below for distribution. These days, however, the teas are moved by road transport, a much less romantic method and the trains are used by passengers.
I wished to experience the mountain train, the mist in the hills of Darjeeling, the champagne of all teas sitting by a tea garden and the beautiful weather this hill station offers. But alas, dialysis restrains me!
I have a pretty comfortable life on dialysis. But the greed of my mind knows no bounds. It yearns for what I do not possess. However, I do not ask for anything too fancy. I do not ask for a cure for my kidney disease. I do not ask for a complement inhibitor with which I can have a successful transplant. All I ask for is a machine that has been available in the US for ten years now. Is that really too much to ask?
The NxStage System One is a portable dialysis machine allows people on dialysis to travel freely. It is not the perfect machine. But it has freed up hundreds of dialysis patients in the US giving them the ability to travel. All I ask for is the access to this machine with the consumables.
There are several new technologies being developed which, in the next five to ten years will change dialysis completely. Those are the claims at least. I so wish these technologies were available a little earlier. I want them NOW.
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