Kiitos CarbonexAB

Thank you to my first international Corporate Crew member, my friends at the Finnish Company, Oy.Carbonex.AB

Thank you to our new sponsors Doggy Daycare and Spa and Lafolette Architects, Builders Interior Designers

Thank you to our two new generous Corporate Crew Sponsors:

Doggy Daycare and Spa located 5325 W. Mount Hope Highway in Lansing, Michigan.  Our seven month old Chocolate Labrador Cassie has a blast at Doggy Daycare.

and

LaFollette Architects, Builders and Interior Designers located at 145 W. Grand River in Williamston, Michigan.  They have been Green Builders for twenty years.

With their contributions we now have raised $2,405 toward our $20,000 goal.

If you would like to join these great Corporate Crew Sponsors just make a contribution of $200, $500 or $1,000.  You can make a check to the National Kidney Foundation and mail it to me or use our secure fundraising page.

Thank you Doggy Daycare and Spa and LaFollette Architects, Builders and Interior Designers.

Dialyze for the Prize!

Erich

I need Paddling on Dialysis Crew Members

Dear Riverdudes:

Thank you so very much for your incredible support for the National Kidney Foundation of Michigan over the past nine years.  With your generous help we have raised over $54,000.  An awesome accomplishment.

To celebrate my 10th year of extra life, I want to do something big.  I want Jacob and Antonia to be able to say, "My Dad did that."  So I've linked my love of rivers with my need to help find a cure for kidney disease and will be canoeing 224 miles from the beginning of the Grand River to Lake Michigan with the Grand River Expedition http://michigan.sierraclub.org/issues/greatlakes/articles/GRE_Admin.html  

And, in so doing I hope to raise $20,000.

I need your help to accomplish both of these goals.

1.  I would welcome you again to be on the Riverdude Crew.  I would love to have you walk with me:

Date:	Sunday, June 13, 2010
Location:	Potter Park Zoo
	Lansing, MI
Check In Begins:	12:00 pm
Walk Starts at:	1:30 pm

You can join the team at 

http://donate.kidney.org/site/TR/Walk/Michigan?px=1006841&pg=personal&fr_id=2860&et=zAhRzmctrVTfaMOlPHo19A..&s_tafId=32401

If it doesn't work as a hyperlink just cut and paste or link to it from my blog http://paddlingondialysisforkidneyhealth.blogspot.com/

If you have already made a donation please sign up and join me.  Once you sign up please ask at least ten people to sponsor you for $10.00.  I will send you a donation envelope or you can set up your own secure funding website.  I can do this for you if you like, just let me know.

If you can't make it to Lansing for the Walk or the Paddling, you can still join the Riverdudes as a virtual paddler and still raise funds.

2.  I would like you to join me for a day on the river.  Andria is pretty adamant that I need to paddle with someone so that I don't fall behind.  While I doubt I will, I respect her request.  Please sign up to paddle with me on one of the days July 15 through July 26.  We will have a shuttle service to take you back to your car after we reach our destination.  You are welcome to spend the night and be part of the festivities too, I just need to know.  There is a $20.00 cost to cover lunch and insurance and a water bottle for your participation.  The Paddling on Dialysis for Kidney Health t-shirt is on me.  You can canoe multiple days if you like.  Just let me know

http://michigan.sierraclub.org/pdfs/GRE2010_Itinerary_revJul09DC.pdf

I'm not sure what I'm doing yet for accommodations since I will be doing hemodialysis each night.  I may have access to a travel trailer or I may based out of centrally located hotels.  I'm still working on that.

I appreciate all that you have done for kidney disease research and education and look forward to you joining me on these very special events.

Warm thoughts, Erich

Hyvä Dialyysi Ystävät

I was asked to write a letter to Finnish dialyzors to give them an idea of what it is like to use the NxStage System One home hemodialysis machine - which I use.  The letter is below.  When my friend Anu sent back the Finnish translation I used Google Translator to see what I said.  To my surprise libido translates to manhood.  So with my list of things I lost while on three times a week dialysis in clinic came the words, "menetin miehuus" - I lost my manhood.  I quickly read ahead to see where I say I gained it back.  To my surprise that part ended up on the editing floor.  Now when I go to Helsinki, people are going to see me and shake their heads saying, "Miesparka menetti miehuutensa. Niin surullista. Erityisesti hänen vaimonsa." Tranlation - "The poor fellow lost his manhood. So sad. Especially for his wife."

I emailed Anu and asked her if it wasn't too late to please insert a sentence saying that once on NxStage he regained all that he lost and then some.

I haven't heard back yet.

Dialyze for the Prize!

Erich

April 18, 2010

Hyvä Dialyysi Ystävät:

I am excited that you will soon be able to do short term daily dialysis using the NxStage System One.  This home dialysis machine changed my life.  Just last week my family and I came home from a ten day trip south to Florida for the warm beaches.  I easily packed up my eighty-pound System One and put it in the back of our car and off we went.  When I got to our hotel, NxStage had already delivered the bags of dialysate and the cartridges that I would need to dialyze. 

Having been on dialysis for ten years, starting when I was 36 years old, I really appreciate being able to do dialysis in my hotel room with my family.  Instead of spending four hours away from them hooked up with strangers in a clinic, I was driving a wave-runner a mile offshore with my children in search of porpoises – we found them too.  A month a ago I put my System One on a plane and flew to Seattle to speak at a dialysis conference.  Traveling is very enjoyable and easy using the System One.

I have been on all types of dialysis including using a traditional machine at home, peritoneal dialysis and three times a week hemodialysis in a clinic.  I have had two kidney transplants the first from my wife.  Unfortunately they each failed almost immediately due to my kidney disease.  For me dialysis is the true gift of life.  I adopted my newborn daughter while on dialysis and I am able to be a father to my now six year old daughter, Antonia and my ten year old son, Jacob and husband to my wife of twenty-two years, Andria because of dialysis.

But, I didn't do all that well on traditional hemodialysis.  I never felt close to what I felt like before the loss of my kidneys.  I was often tired and would crash after taking off four to five kilos.  I losed my libido.  While I was thankful to be alive, I knew there had to be something better.  I wanted to thrive.  I wanted the life I had before dialysis. 

Then one day while reading a nephrology magazine I saw an add for NxStage.  Before long I had my doctor enroll me in a training program.  After three weeks of training I was ready to come home.  I have to admit that learning to cannulate myself was the hardest part.  But I knew if I could get past the needle sticks I could go home and dialyze with my family.  It didn't take long before I was feeling better than I ever did on three times a week.  In fact, soon after I even found my libido.  I wrote a letter to NxStage suggesting that they should market the System One as better than Viagra.  

It may be hard to think of having to dialyze more than three times a week.  For me, short term daily dialysis entails six days a week at two and a half hours a week.  If you don't try it though you will never know what you are missing.  More frequent dialysis opened my life to a much more liberal diet and no fluid restrictions.  In fact, I'm drinking a Finlandia and tonic as I write this.  My anemia is better controlled and I am on only one small dose of hypertension medicine.  Dialyzing at home minimizes my exposure to infection.  I haven't been in a hospital the entire four years that I have been using the System One.  Most importantly, I am looking forward to a long life where one day a long time from now I will walk my daughter down the aisle on her wedding day.

I also look forward to one day flying to Helsinki and dialyzing in my hotel room with my NxStage System One and meeting some of you.

Lämpimästi, amerikkalaisen Dialyysi ystävälle,

Erich Ditschman

PS I really enjoyed watching Peetu Piiroinen's half pipe runs at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

I have returned

In preparation for my canoeing extravaganza this summer I recently equipped my Highlander with a Thule car top carrier which has been a point of contention in our house.  After ten years of service our Chrysler Minivan finally was ready for retirement.  After ten years of driving a minivan I was ready to get back to my driving enthusiasm roots.  The contention is not based on the Highlander and a return to my roots, rather it is the piling of stuff on top of it.

A brief automotive ownership history will add some clarity.  Prior to the Minivan I drove a Jeep Cherokee.  While unreliable it was fun and our Chocolate Lab - Amos and our Golden Retriever - Molson both looked incredible in it, er, I mean there was plenty of room for them.  After sometime I sold the Cherokee and bought a bright red Mazda Miata.  Flipping down the top made my hour commute from Bloomfield to Port Huron a joy - well at least during the two and half months of warm weather.  After two incredible summers with the Miata I sold it in favor of a more practical Michigan winter car, a shiny red Jeep Wrangler which was a blast on the two tracks near our home in Lapeer but not so much fun on my hour commute from Lapeer to Bloomfield.  But when you are driving a Wrangler you never complain about the ride, rather you just keep looking for other Wrangler owners to flip the two finger Jeep salute to which really says, “we look cool even though we are doing irrevocable damage to our spinal columns.”  We then moved to East Lansing and adopted our baby, Jacob.  “Bye, bye Wrangler” and “hello Chrysler Town & Country.”  It wasn’t all bad.  Even though the Chrysler was a lemon and required constant maintenance it had a ton of room which made life easy when it ran.

So yesterday, I stop and look at the Highlander with our new seven month old Chocolate Lab - Cassie in the back and my canoe on top and think, “I have returned.”  To me the vehicle looks natural with a canoe on one side and a car top carrier on the other.  Andria, however, thinks the car looks wonderful just as it was when we drove it off the lot.  Not to interject favorites, but our son who is now ten years old, said, "Mom, it makes us look active."  "Thanks son."  To me not only do we look active thanks to this project, I am getting more active.

I knew Andria's concern as I was at Summit Sports contemplating the bar length of the Thule.  We have one canoe which has capacity for three. I knew we needed another boat to get all four of us on the water at the same time.  I was also thinking about adding a car top carrier to hold the paddles and life jackets and figured we could use it on our upcoming road trip to Florida.  My eighty pound NxStage Hemodialysis machine takes a bit of space so I thought we could use some extra storage.  The storage worked out great, however, suffice it to say it was probably our last road trip to Florida.

I’m at Summit Sports adding up different configurations of canoe racks, kayak saddles and car top carriers to determine the proper bar length when I look out the store window and see Trey, the store manager’s van loaded with four kayaks on top and I think, “what a beautiful sight.”  After a few minutes another vision enters my mind and I think, “think smaller Erich you have to think smaller.”  The only way I can figure out getting two boats on top and a carrier is to buy the 78 inch bars which end up over lapping my roof by a few inches on both sides.  I left them at the shop until a week before our recent Florida trip, putting off the inevitable disappointment to the last possible minute.  Then the day before our trip I put up the sleek black Atlantis cargo carrier.  Andria’s sigh was palpable when she came home and saw it.  However, suffice it to say we both enjoyed being able to look out the rear window when driving.  And, retrieving our gear out of the carrier was a piece of cake.  Andria definitely warmed up to the practicalness of the carrier by the end of our trip.  It wasn’t until yesterday when she came home and saw that the carrier was no longer centered and was instead hanging over the driver’s side so that I could fit the canoe on the other side which was also hanging off the side that any goodwill I may have garnered flew out the window.  I promised her that the good thing about Thule is that they can easily be removed.  That is when canoeing season is over.  Unfortunately, yesterday I found out that I would not be able to get two boats and the car top carrier all on the roof.  I was really thinking that would look sweet.  I came to this realization when I was at Summit Sports having Kyle check my rigging.  I'll still be able to get two boats on top which will be good.  But as I was looking for a small dry bag for my trip out to Lake Lansing yesterday, I saw the solution to my problem - a two kayak trailer.  I knew there was a reason I bought a hitch.  With any luck, before long I'll look like I own a canoe livery.