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Week of June 27th Traveling Around the Globe:
Adventures of a Hemodialysis Patient Bill Peckham has undergone hemodialysis since 1990 and has traveled all over the
world, dialyzing in 19 countries on five continents. Learn about his adventures
and hear firsthand what dialysis is like in other parts of the world.
Welcome to KidneyTalk!
So, you think your traveling days are over now that you’re
on dialysis? Think again. On this week’s show, Lori Hartwell and Stephen Furst
talk with Bill Peckham, a hemodialysis patient who has visited 29 countries on
five continents since starting dialysis, dialyzing in 19 of them!
Bill, who calls Seattle, WA, home, thought his traveling
days were over once he began hemodialysis in 1990. “I loved traveling before I
started dialysis,” says Bill, “but I really didn’t understand how widely you
could travel, needing dialysis three times a week.” Since then, his travels have
been as extensive as his imagination allows.
From a dialysis unit in South Africa with peacocks
strutting around the grounds, to a unit overlooking the Great Barrier Reef in
Australia, to a unit in Central America where the iodine came from a bottle
instead of an individual swab, Bill has taken advantage of the worldwide
availability of dialysis facilities, as well as the worldwide community of
dialysis patients who love to travel.
Though he certainly enjoys traveling with others, Bill
says that “If the choice is between going alone and not going, I’ll go alone.”
He’s quick to point out that traveling with a hemodialysis patient does have
certain advantages: “A lot of time, travel can seem like a three-legged race
when you’re with someone, because you have to do everything together. But when
people travel with me, they know they’re going to have five hours, three days a
week when they can do whatever they want. So it works out great!”
Arguably among the most traveled dialysis patients in the
world, Bill credits his lack of apprehension to dialyzing abroad to a single
action--he inserts his own dialysis needles. He also credits self-cannulation
with a better dialysis experience overall. “Self-care, and taking charge of your
care, it’s all a piece of doing well on dialysis,” says Bill. “And for someone
who likes to travel like myself, putting in your own needles really is a great
way to go, because it takes away all the worry about visiting another unit.
Because once the needles are in, the staff should be able to hook you up just
like they do their own patients day after day. It also says to the staff, here’s
someone who really does take control of his treatment and knows what he’s
doing.”
One of the most refreshing things in hearing about Bill’s
adventures, says Lori, “is that it reminds everybody that you can still do the
things you want to do” in spite of chronic kidney disease. “Sometimes you just
have to plan a little bit more,” adds Lori, “but you can still live a full
life.”
Bill writes about his adventures on the website,
www.globaldialysis.com, which
has a database of dialysis facilities in 127 countries that offer dialysis for
travelers (go to Blogs and select Bill from the Author list). There are a number
of websites useful to dialysis patients who wish to travel in the U.S. or
abroad, as well as companies that arrange tours and cruises that accommodate
dialysis patients. Ask your unit’s social worker to help you with your travel
needs, or visit www.RSNhope.org; on
the Resources drop-down menu, click on Travel.
