Kidney Failure - My Husband Story 1

It has been 4 years since I have left the employment. Berhenti kerja lah tu. Tahun pertama tu aku tercari-cari jugak apa bisnes nak buat. Bermacam-macam kursus keusahawanan aku join. Macam-macam program aku fikir nak join. Tapi akhirnya tak menjadi pun.

Actually, I was getting a bit depressed as well. My husband was getting stressed out by the fact that I was staying at home without any income coming in. We used to enjoy 5 figures salaries between the 2 of us and now it was reduced to a around 40% of the total income. The girls are getting into the universities and everything would rest on his shoulders. I was using the excused that I have no one to take care of my mother who was getting more and more dependent on me. I couldn't get out of the house without worrying that she would fall and hurt herself. She is almost bedridden and has the tendency to stay awake at night and sleep through the day. She really need someone to look after her day and night.

At the end of 2009 I finally made up my mind, I had to go out to be earning an income before I "kill" my husband or ruin my marriage. I told my sibling that either we hire a maid to take care of my mother or someone else had to take care of her.

The maid finally arrived on 4 April 2010. It was Ayin's birthday. It was at subuh prayer time on 16th April, at the time when Syia wanted to go to school that we noticed my husband had fainted. I remember that he woke me up at around 5 am. when wanted to go to the toilet. We went back to sleep and at 6.30 am that we found him fainted. I panicked, called his cousin Dr Zainab for advice and with the help of Abang Lang (who arrived the evening before, Alhamdulillah) Ayin, we rushed him to the hospital. He was diagnosed with hypoglycemia. His sugar level was 1.8 which was far too low. For a diabetic, hypoglycemia is much more dangerous than a hyperglycemia. If we had delayed a few more minutes he would have had a stroke or even die.

Prior to that attack, hubby had been complaining that his eye-sight were not good. He wanted to make new specs, but he was adviced to see the eye specialist before he should make new glasses. His eyes could not focus well, and it would be a waste of money to make glasses which he would not be able to use. The specialist found sugar deposits on his eye nerves which is common for diabetic. Hubby was asked to control his sugar level.

My hubby was so paranoid about the increase in his sugar level that he dared not eat anything. On the evening prior to his hypo attack, he could hardly walk because he had not eaten enough. All he would eat was rice and soup. He was so weak, he could barely walk without holding to me. I had started to drive him to work because of his tiredness.

Since then we have been going for monthly regular check-up. After a year, we are told that my husband has kidney failure.

Note :

Hypoglycemia is low blood sugar level below 4.

Hyperglycemia is high blood sugar level.

The normal person reading would be around 5 to 7.

Disclaimer :

This is going to be a personal journal on my husband's strive as a kidney patient. My intention to blog this is not to gain symphathy from anyone. It is more of documenting the journey that we have to go through from the eyes of the care giver and the patient himself. Maybe something good may come out of this but at least it would remind me to be thankful to Allah.