Dialysis
Dialysis & Identity
December 29, 2025
in Dialysis
Dialysis became a label before I was seen as a person
I had to remind others that my diagnosis doesn't define me,
How did you hold on to who you are after tarting dialysis
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1 - 4 of 4 Replies
lavise such a great question, as i reflect on 2025 i am honestly learning to find the balance between who i am/was before i started dialysis. i have found the pain in my purpose but over the last 5 years I have had stop and consciously not talk about my chronic disease, its been an interesting ride to say the least. i try at times in some of my social media posts just to talk about my family or my interests in sports etc. so i dont have to always mention my kidney disease. thats what i do. i make small little things like that.
As Alex noted, this is such a great question. Part of me felt like dialysis was a part-time job, but since I was doing PD at home, there were no days off. When I looked in my living room and bathroom every day, even during non-treatment hours, there were reminders of my treatment...the boxes of supplies, bandages etc. I leaned into largely not sharing about treatment publicly, except to my inner circle of dialysis friends, because I was afraid of being labelled as "the friend on dialysis" and I wanted to remain the friend who still had hobbies and things that made him who he is. I didn't want to be treated differently. The first few months of dialysis were very daunting, but once I got into a routine, I would push myself to do things like travel with my PD cycler and ensure I was making the treatment work for me and not the other way around. It was really hard but critical for my mental health to feel like I was the one in charge.
I can relate to both of you. I tried to live my life as fully as possible on non-dialysis days but once I revealed that I was on dialysis they only saw me as fragile. I wanted to hold on to my independence,
When I did PD at home, I made sure once I started my day. I didn't return to my bedroom where my supplies were placed until I needed to prepare my treatment. Otherwise, I felt it was a constant reminder.
This is an interesting question because I'm at a point on my kidney journey that if you are meeting me for the first (and haven't stalked me on social media) you couldn't tell that I have a chronic condition. So to some point I've been able to distance myself from dialysis and kidney disease but on the other side it does become a problem when advocating either for myself or others because it feels like they believe me.
For those that know about my condition, they don't really treat me like a fragile thing, on the contrary they admire my resiliency while still respecting my needs for rest and accommodations.