We were just told that my grandmother is having renal failure. She is 76 years old. What exactly does this mean? They said it doesn't look good. I mean what is it that they can do for her? I am very close to her so i'm not ready for the possibility of her dying. Is there hope for her? She looks really bad and for some reason she is in alot of pain all the time. She is in the hospital right now and they are running more tests. But i'm wondering at her age is there hope? Thanks in advance for listening. I guess I just needed to tell people who know about these things.

At this age, it really depends on what the cause of the renal failure is. She probably looks and feels ill, because in renal failure your blood figures rise to dangerous levels in the blood because your kidneys cannot get rid of them. However, they can put her onto an emergency haemodialysis via a line in either her neck or her groin and if this is done for a short time on a daily basis for a while, then this could make her feel a lot better generally. She would be feeling so sick due to all the toxins in her blood stream.

I looked after a patient once, who was really sick when he came in and had acute on chronic renal failure. He was dialysed daily for about a week and very slowly his figures came back down to normal and he started to look and feel a lot better. He was eventually discharged and had to come back for regular chronic hemodialysis. At the age of 80 yrs he got a transplant that was successful and is still going strong. He had been very fit and active all his life, so I suspect that this transplant will last him for the rest of his life.

There is always hope, even as you get older, so don't give up, however, every case has to be looked at on its individual merits. If your grandmother has previously been fit and well, then there might be some hope, however, if she has had ill health for sometime and depending on what is causing the renal failure in the first place, it might be kinder in the long run to let her go, so that she does not suffer.

Anyway, wait for the results of the tests and then take it from there.

Good luck

Sarah, Thanks so much for your reply. That all makes me feel much better. Again thanks so much for all the input.

I don't know what part of Texas you live in but what is very important is to have good medical care with better than average practicing Doctors.

I have found this makes alot of difference but you probably know that already!!!

God bless---Harry