I believe I mentioned in a previous blog of how we are helping out at the local Penang Adventist Hospital. We help with raising funds, and managed to get hooked up with the Chaplains of the hospital to get to go around and pray for and build relationships with the many patients in this hospital. I have really enjoyed getting to go around and meet the patients, since I am definitely out of my comfort zone to be talking to these people and Then getting to Pray Healing and Comfort over these folks who are of all religions. Adventists and Catholics are Not the only ones who go to this hospital for care.
One of the last few days while there we met a patient who was suffering from a punctured kidney and mentioned how he had to continuously do Dialysis. I have only just heard of this treatment mentioned very little, and I guess I might of just been ignorant yet this is certainly affecting people back in the States too. I was curious about learning what this Dialysis treatment was all about since it affected ones kidneys. Part of being a Health and PE major there is a side of me which is very amazed at how the body functions and works.
They had a very nice high tech Dialysis Treatment Center in the hospital that we had actually visited a week before, but I really didn’t understand what it was at that time. The chaplain, Kelsie and I stood for a while in the treatment center and there were many patients who were hooked up to these fascinating machines.
From what I understand of Dialysis, when a Kidney is punctured or just Not working as it should, it affects the Whole body. It affects the body, because the Kidneys filter and clean ones blood. If a kidney isn’t working right, then the blood isn’t getting properly filtered and then that affects the amount of nutrients and oxygen is being supplied to the body. Dialysis Treatment is when you are hooked up to a machine that acts as a New Kidney and filters the blood and puts it back into your blood stream. I know that the average life of a Red Blood Cell is just a few days, so this also means one must go to treatment 3 times a week…for the rest of your life. There is No Way to fix the Kidney.
Each time you go for treatment, you must get pricked and have 2 needles in you, one for outflow of blood and one for in-flow. If a person doesn’t go for treatment for more than a week, then they can’t hardly even function due to almost No oxygen and nutrients are being able to be supplied throughout the body from the unclean RBCs. I was told that many people who are poor that cannot afford to get a treatment 3 times a week, eventually decide not to have it anymore and is basically a matter of a week or two until they die.
Even with Dialysis treatment, one only is continuing their life maybe less than 10 years. Yes, one could get a kidney transplant, but the waiting line is huge and a lot of these Malaysian people, and others in the world, cannot afford the surgery.
Realizing of the situation these people were in, the looks on their faces, and the condition of their bodies just broke my heart. These people cannot really even enjoy their life much due to the continuous treatment and condition of their body, and what really hit me the most is that I Knew that these Malaysians certainly were not Believers. That they were eventually waiting on a death-bed/chair basically and the entire time not really aware or maybe even ignoring who Jesus was and how their lives seemed Hopeless.
It really makes one check themselves in where they stand with God, and how delicate ones life is. To go through life with not knowing that they have a Seat in Heaven with The King of Kings. Each one of us have a specified date where we WILL meet Him Face to Face…Let’s Enjoy What Life we Do have & Give Him Praise, even if we are affected by some illness.
On a Completely different note, we made a team video of us during the month of Malaysia. It will more than likely make you laugh…especially the part where I am doin the Hoedown Throwdown dance….yes, I’m quite embarrassed but whatever.
