this is just to let yall know that i take care of my brother who is 39yrs old he is on dialysis, he is diabetic and has been since the age of 14. his right leg was ampuated 12yrs ago about 5 inch below the knee. he goes to dialysis 3 days a week and is on the machine 5 hours at a time. he has been on dialysis for 3 years, i do everything for him, he is a very strong young man and thats what keeps him going. his life is dialysis and he has to scedual everything around it to have some kind of social life. right now he is in the hospital for an ulser on his foot caused from diabetis, the moral of this is when i start to feel bad or get down on myself i just take one look at my very sweet brother and i relize my life isnt so bad after all! thanks for listen to me, if you have any questions about dialysis or diabetis feel free to e mail me, i know a lot about these diseases. what gets me upset about this, is that i cant fix it and make it all better for him.

I'm real sorry to hear about that, but unfortunately renal failure is an all to common side effect of diabetes, however well controlled it is. I used to work as a renal RN in a unit and half my patients were diabetic. Some of them did get transplants though. They also started doing renal/pancreatic transplants together for a lot of the diabetic patients and some were successful. Is there any chance that your brother can get one, or has it progressed too far?

Anyway, sounds like you are doing a great job of looking after your brother, although it must be real hard at times? I always found renal nursing hard myself, as we always got really close to the patients as they were on the wards all the time and it was really hard when they died.

Take care

Sarah