Diabetes – The Silent Killer

My husband Jeff has type 1 diabetes. Ive learned that sometimes diabetes takes your eyes or your limbs but in his case it took his kidneys. In1997 he had a kidney transplant from his oldest sister, which lasted 2 years and rejected. Again in 1999, he received a donated kidney from his youngest sister. When we married in 2003 his kidney was still functioning well and he was leading a pretty normal life.

My final thoughts: For those of you out there with type 1 or type 2 diabetes or who may be at risk, please take care of yourselves. Get checked and do what the doctors tell you to do. Unfortunately, there will come a time in the life of most diabetics where they will be faced with life or death decisions. My husband would be the first to tell you that he wished he had taken better care of himself and managed his diabetes more carefully. There is helpful information at http://LifeOrDeathWithDiabetes.com

We are anxiously waiting to see if the stem cells will improve his heart enough for him to qualify for a kidney transplant and get off of dialysis. The dialysis is taking a toll on his heart but they will not put him on a heart transplant list due to his diabetes and they wont put him on a kidney transplant list due to his poor heart function, so this is our only shot!

One day he felt funny, checked his glucose level and it was very high. We left to see the doctor immediately, fearing that his pancreas was rejecting. The doctor ran a series of tests and his pancreas was rejecting. He was in the hospital for several days. They tried a number of different medicines some of them made him very sick. The only way to explain it would be to multiply any flu that youve had times 10. It was awful to watch him go through the sickness. None of the anti rejection meds worked and once again he was a diabetic. It took us a while to adjust back to the diabetes lifestyle but we managed. At the end of 2007, Jeff started having trouble breathing one night. I took him to the emergency room and they ran a lot of different tests.We then found out he had congestive heart failure and his kidney was shutting down. This was very hard to hear.

I decided that I was not giving up. I started researching heart failure online and came across a site that was talking about stem cells for the heart. My first thought was I bet this is a bunch of bull but went ahead and continued researching it. They were using stem cells from the patients own blood not embryonic. There were actually trials going on here in the states for this exact thing. I contacted all of the participating healthcare centers but nobody would take him in because he had diabetes. Jeff and I talked about it in length and decided to contact Dr. Zannos Grekos who was the one I had originally found when I first started researching. He was located in Florida, so that made us feel a bit better too. I sent all of his medical records there and the doctor contacted us and said hed be willing to take his case. We finally had some hope again but the money was a big issue. The stem cell procedure was going to cost $64,500 and that wasnt counting any of the travel expenses. We got a loanagainst the house, his family helped and the church took up donations. We hadthe money and the hope of a better life. In May of this year (2009) we flew to Florida.

Jeff was very very weak and I honestly didnt know if hed make the trip but we had to try. We arrived in Florida and the doctor admitted him into the hospital. After about a week, he had him feeling a bit better and ready for the blood drawl that had to be done for the stem cell procedure. The blood was taken in Florida and it took one week to get it back. The procedure itself cannot be done in the US because it is not FDA approved, so we had to fly to the Dominican Republic for the stem cell implantation.After three days in the Dominican we were back home in Kentucky.It takes 6-9 months for the stem cells to work. Hes had his 3 month follow-up tests and his heart has improved some.

We are anxiously waiting to see if the stem cells will improve his heart enough for him to qualify for a kidney transplant and get off of dialysis. The dialysis is taking a toll on his heart but they will not put him on a heart transplant list due to his diabetes and they wont put him on a kidney transplant list due to his poor heart function, so this is our only shot!

My final thoughts: For those of you out there with type 1 or type 2 diabetes or who may be at risk, please take care of yourselves. Get checked and do what the doctors tell you to do. Unfortunately, there will come a time in the life of most diabetics where they will be faced with life or death decisions. My husband would be the first to tell you that he wished he had taken better care of himself and managed his diabetes more carefully. There is helpful information at http://LifeOrDeathWithDiabetes.com