- - A I PAGE 16, WHITBY nuREs rESSa, wEumNnunI, 1KtaAmiv, wo Imagine is a national campaign of The Canadian Centre for Philanthropy to increase anadians' awareness and contribution to all charitable and volunteer organzations We Life worth living once more By Feroneh Neil To look at her Dorothy Clarke appears just ie anyone else. And she is married, a mother, a part of a famil unitcomplete with family dog, living in a lovely home in Whitby. What isn't seen at a glance is the sack attached to a tube run- ning below her stomach. And she takes an abnormal amount of pills every day. She lives her life day by day, never knowing if or when she may have to go back to living a portion of her ife hooked up to a machine. Clarke, like many other eople, is a dependant on the Kdney Foundation. The founda- tion is an organization of people who dedicate their time and efforts to raising money and researching ways to keep people alive -- people like Dorothy Clark. Clarke wasn't aware of her own kidney problem until her first daughter was born. "I got an infection and I had a lot of troubles without knowing what was wrong," she says. "The doctor said that it had probably started long before Ihad my daughter. I gained a lot of weiht.-" After more time Clarke was told that she had a kidney dis- ease. She didn't have much time to prepare for the news, and even less time to prepare. for the profound effect on her life as well as her family. "When a member of your fam- ily has a disease like this one, it really changes your lifestyle, although it happens gradually, and it can be really rough," Clarke explains. "I couldn't be the kind of mother other kids have because I was tired a lot. It ut a lot of stress on my hus- and. "You might think that things like these would bring families closer together, well, sometimes it does. In a lot of cases, though, it breaks families apart. It becomes a lot of pressure, and sometimes people just can't handle it. The stress that they feel doesn't just mean dealing with the disease. "It also includes invasion of sometimes have to come to help with the house. There may be little or no real social life, and f KIDNEY FOUNDATION Purpose: Raise money for research and provide patient services Fund Raising: Door-to-door, direct mail, in memoriam, golf tournaments, fal"peanut"campaign Volunteers: 4,000 - 4,500 across Canada NationalBudget: approx. $3/4 million or when a person gets a trans- plant, money comes out of your own pocket." Along with the restrictions that the disease put on her life, Clarke says that she had to consume numerous amounts of pills to help her system out. "I was taking pills for my blood pressure and my ulcer, and when a person is on pills for whatever reason, the resistance becomes lower, so I had to also take pills to fight infections," Clarke explains. "I was at one time taking over 40 pills. There is currently no cure for kidney diseases, and donations go to research. However, there are dialysis treatments to give some relief. to patients. Te treatments continue until some- body is found who will donate a kidney. Kidney transplants are now the* only answer for the chronically ill. There are two types of dialysis used: hemo-dialysis and peri- toneal dialysis.The former is for those with chronic failure, and it means that the patient would be hooked up to a machine for five to six hours, three days a week. The patient can either go to the hospital twice a week and stay overnight, or have the machine brought into the home. "A small machine would be installed into your home, and .týA.. aIc %nlll vnîî li." says Berl Thompson, an active memnber of the board. "me other person would have to take precautions as if the patient were in the hospital triings like being dlean, etc, and they can't be squeemish abut things like blood," Thompson explains. "Training would be needed in order to learn the procedure, and that would take about two weeks. This method is used temporarily and is paid for by the government." Peritoneal dialysis occurs every four hours. A tube is sent ,through the peritoneal cavity, and sacks are attached to it. The fluid inside one of the bags goes throughout the patient's system to purify the blood, an the impurities come out. As the bags are changed after every four hours, the mam- problem is exosing the patient to possible infection, although this method sometimes works out to be chea- per. There are four different bags that can be used for this type of dialysis, depending on the sugar content. .e less amount of sugar there is, the less amount is drawn out of the body's system. The levels range from 1.5 to 4, but the most commonly used range is 1.5. Thompson, who has been involved in the foundation for many years, says not enough people know the problems ou t about by the disease. "People just don't realize what it's like," Thompson says. "It's a continous existng problem that won't just go away, and a lot of people out there don't think it is. DOROTHY CLARKE They feel that there are many successes and that we don't need help. People (family members of atient) dofeel chéated that they have to be there dayad night for the patient, an sometimes they resent him/her for inter- ruptn what could have been a norma life. "The Kidney Foundation needs a lot more support than it receives. There are a lot of people working on finding a drug or some other method to combat the rejection of a transplanted kid-- .ney, because right now, that is the only answer that we have," she says. "If there are 50 people who don't make it over a year, there -are 50 people who make it over five years. She says if more people would even give gust an hour of volun- teer help, thousands of patients, doctors, and nurses who support them wouldbe grateful." And for some patients, there is light at the end of what seems to be a very dark tunnel. They are those who actually get a kidney transplant. Dorothy Clarke has been a transplant patient for four years now and things are looking goocf. "The fact that your body might possibly reject the new kîdney is a risk that you take," Clarke says. "The transplant is con- sidered a success if the patient makes it over a year, but some- times the transplant fails after that. Then they have to go (Toronto) where there is room for them. "I've had mine for four years, and I live my life. I just don't think about t he possibilities and the other things, I just live my life with my family." Thousands of Canadians are waiting for the gift of.a life-saving transplant. The Kidney Foundation * of Canada urges you to sign an organ donor card. privacy. As în my case, peupie soi euuuy . vut The giving begins with you. A FOUR IJITER WORD WE SHOULID ALL USE MORE O OEN. GIVE. Uiid afey eek- revention i the goal Child S fety edards, or---Cfid ft Week By Debbie Luchuk Safety awareness, behavior and caution are the themes of National Child Safety Week this week from April 16 to 22. The week, sponsored by the federal government, provincial Ministry of Consumer Affairs and the Canadian Juvenile Pro- ducts Association, is to educate consumers and particularly parents about the dangers of household chemicals, drugs and other substances and household ap liances to a child's safety, as we1 as a strong emphasis on the purchase of safety approved child car seats, cribs, other furnture, and toys. Although the sale of uvemie roducts and toys is regulated by aw, and voluntary standards are adhered to by several manufac- turers, parents and consumers should be aware of the products that do slip between the cracks of legislation and regulations, that could compromise a child's safety. Buying such items as car seats and cribs at yard sales and flea markets is risky, because the consumer has n idea when the productwas produced (for exam- pIe, any c.ib manufactured forea 186 could be dangerous) or whether it has been CSA approved. "We can control the sale of cribs (those that are unsafe) but we cannot prevent people from using them or reselling them," said a spokesman. "Prevention is our goal. We'd like to put ourselves out of a job, through education (so that no more accidents ma yoccur)." For more information on eor Child Safetyeek, contact Fred McGuire, assistant to regional manager, at (416) 973-4705 or Christine Simpson, inspector, at (416) 572-2845. 4 support their goals and are contributing space for the Imagine ads on this and other pages. To bring the campaign closer to home, the Whitby Free Press is running a series of profiles of the needs and activities of local organizations. Call us if your organization could use a boost. 1 Wil VITU EN a. 1 1 M .'l 1 1 - 1 1