Home

Before Diagnosis

I spent years abusing my body. I drank too much, used drugs, ate nothing but processed food, never exercised, and avoided doctors for most of my life. By the time I landed in the hospital, my blood pressure was 250/170 — the doctors were shocked I wasn’t having a stroke on the spot.

I didn’t end up with kidney failure by accident. I pushed myself there.

Hospitalization and Diagnosis

I spent two weeks in the hospital while doctors ran every test imaginable. They gathered enough data on my body to fill volumes. I had a biopsy, ultrasounds, and a long list of diagnostics. Their conclusion was End Stage Renal Disease. They told me I would be on dialysis for the rest of my life unless I received a transplant.

Here is the labs from my hospital stay:

Starting Dialysis

After I was discharged, I was assigned to an inpatient hemodialysis clinic in Reno, Nevada (6144 Mae Anne Ave, Reno, NV 89523). The sign on the building said Liberty Dialysis, but it was actually a Fresenius Medical clinic.

Like every new dialysis patient, I was terrified but hopeful. Up to that point, everyone had been kind and helpful. Social workers helped me apply for Medicare, and I was reassured over and over that I would never have to worry about the cost of treatment — Medicare would cover everything. In those early days, I genuinely felt like the system was built to help people who needed it.

I was grateful and expressed that to everyone everyday.

I followed the dietitians’ advice exactly. In reality, it was mostly handouts listing foods to avoid and foods to limit, but I took it seriously and followed it. I quit drugs and alcohol entirely and committed to living as healthy a life as I could for as long as I had. I never missed a treatment, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Problems With Cannulation and Blood Flow

Once my fistula matured enough to use, the clinic often struggled to cannulate it properly. There were frequent infiltrations, and many sessions where the needles weren’t placed correctly. When that happened, they lowered my blood flow rate. My prescribed BFR was 400, but alarms would go off due to high pressure, and it was often reduced to 250.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand what this meant, so I started asking questions. By my math, if my prescription was 400 and I was running at 250, then four hours in the chair amounted to only about two and a half hours of effective dialysis.

The most senior tech, the one who trained the others, refused to cannulate me. She joked that I was her “kryptonite.” She had caused multiple infiltrations before, which were extremely painful (if you know, you know). Most of the other techs were new and had no medical background before becoming dialysis technicians, so they also lacked “finesse”. There was one tech who could cannulate my fistula perfectly every time, but she wasn’t always available.

Eventually, I put my foot down. If we couldn’t maintain my prescribed blood flow rate of 400, I said we would end the session and try again the next day. Fresenius accommodated this, because if they didn’t deliver the prescribed treatment, they wouldn’t get paid. They sent me to the access center vascular surgeon multiple times. Each visit, she told me my fistula looked extremely healthy, but still proceeded with interventions anyway.

Despite all of this, we continued to struggle to keep my BFR at 400. I was the one who suggested that the tech who could cannulate me consistently train the others. Eventually, they did.

Dialysis Adequacy and the First Red Flags

Once my treatments became more consistent, my spKt/V, the metric used to measure dialysis adequacy, started to rise steadily. I got it up to 1.9. My doctor told me that if I reached 2.0, I could reduce my time in the chair. That mattered to me. For the first time, I felt some control over my life again.

Then, over the next few months, my spKt/V dropped sharply. I asked what I could do to bring it back up. Every response was the same, that kidney disease only gets worse, not better, and there was nothing I could do.

Around that time, my social worker told me something that I later discovered was completely untrue. When I challenged her and quoted what my doctor had actually said, she responded, “Oh, I wasn’t lying, I just didn’t know.” I told her she had presented it as fact, something I was expected to accept and take home with me.

That was the moment I formally requested all of my medical records so I could understand exactly what was happening with the machines and the treatments that were supposed to be keeping me alive.

That’s when I discovered my dialysate flow rate had been reduced. My prescription was 800, but when my numbers began dropping, it had been lowered to 500. When I asked if that could affect my spKt/V, they admitted that it absolutely could. They claimed there was a nationwide shortage, but I asked why no one had ever informed me when the change was made (or when i specifically asked why my numbers were going down).

That’s when distrust in my care team started to set in.

Corporate Intervention and the “UNSTABLE” Label

I contacted corporate to report the serious problems happening at the clinic. They sent executive representatives to meet with me. I wasn’t happy, and I made that clear. I could have been gentler, but I was angry that my life had been treated as disposable. They assured me they cared and promised this would never happen again. They proposed monthly care plan reviews to monitor my treatment more closely. I agreed. I felt cautiously satisfied.

My dialysate flow rate was restored to the prescribed 800. The blood flow rate issues were addressed, though only when I actively enforced them. I also requested a larger dialyzer, something well within their ability to provide, and that was approved. On paper, everything looked like it was finally being corrected.

The first monthly care plan under this new arrangement showed measurable improvements in my health. Then I turned to the last page.

I lost it.

I had done everything asked of me. I never missed treatments. Even when sessions were rescheduled, I never missed my three days a week. I followed the diet. I made the lifestyle changes. I showed up, on time, every time. The claim that I was “non-adherent” was simply false.

When I confronted corporate, they told me the designation was required in order to conduct monthly care plan reviews. I rejected that explanation outright. Words matter. That label wasn’t procedural, it was character assassination. It created a permanent mark in my medical record that any future provider would see and assume was true.

I contacted the ESRD Network for help. They were ineffective at best, and at worst seemed more interested in shielding the clinic than protecting the patient. Based on the outcome, I still believe that.

At that point, any remaining trust I had was gone. I realized I wasn’t just a patient anymore, I was in a fight for my life against the very system that controlled my access to treatment.

Gaslighting, Grievances, and Escalation

They violated so many of my patient rights. I asked direct questions and did not received straight answers. They did not care about my mental health or the torment they caused me. Instead, I was repeatedly told I was “not adhering” to treatment, even though the record showed otherwise. The gaslighting was constant.

I did argue about it in the clinic, and I won’t pretend that didn’t disrupt other patients. Much of what I was fighting about was on their behalf too. If information was being withheld from me, I knew it was likely being withheld from others (mostly elderly people). Still, from the outside, I probably looked like an angry problem patient.

The situation escalated to the point where they hired an armed guard to sit next to my chair while I slept during dialysis. It was surreal. Ironically, he and I joked about it outside the clinic, and we’re actually friends now.

I’m not claiming I handled everything perfectly. I didn’t. But that escalation became another way to reinforce the narrative they wanted, that I was unstable, difficult, and someone they needed to “manage,” rather than a patient demanding transparency about his own care.

Fresenius controlled the entire narrative. My complaints were never documented, and written grievances either disappeared or were ignored. When I asked for updates, staff acted as if they had no idea what I was talking about.

The Meeting With My Parents

Even my parents thought I was losing my grip on reality. I had asked them to come stand with me, to confront what I believe was abuse, and I stand by that word completely. Fresenius knew they were coming and showed up to the meeting with corporate representatives and attorneys already present.

During that meeting, they told my parents they believed I was mentally ill. My parents agreed. Given my history of addiction and past behavior. A surreal, nightmare moment I will never forget.

In that moment, I lost everything, my credibility, my support system, my voice. No one understood what was happening, and even the people I trusted most must have thought I sounded delusional.

I have never felt more alone in my life.

First Removal and Being Trespassed

From there it was a nonstop fight to hold my care team accountable, but in December of 2022, I was kicked out of the clinic for the first time. I was formally trespassed from the location where I was receiving treatment. At that point, I had still never missed a dialysis session. I began bouncing between emergency rooms for treatments and was shuffled to other Fresenius clinics, some hours away from my home. They attempted to transfer me to DaVita, but because my chart listed me as “unstable,” DaVita refused to accept me.

Eventually, I was forced back to the same clinic that had already labeled and retaliated against me, but only after signing a behavioral agreement.

The problems continued.

Months of Yellow Lights

If you’re a dialysis patient, you know the machines have status lights. Green means everything is fine. Red means an immediate issue, bloodpressure, access, or blood flow. Yellow means dialysis adequacy is not being met, your spKt/V is insufficient.

My machine stayed yellow for months.

I wasn’t quiet about it. I asked every session. I submitted written grievances and had staff sign and copy them to prove receipt. No one fixed it. I was told it might be because i ate too much salt. I was still on a strict diet and knew that wasn’t true. Every other patient in the room had green lights. Mine stayed yellow for months.

One nurse suggested my height or weight might be entered incorrectly in the machine. Still, nothing changed. Eventually, the issue was corrected, but I demanded to know why it had happened and why it took so long. Corporate representatives, including Elizabeth Britton, claimed they had no idea what I was talking about. I never received an explanation.

Second Removal, ER Dialysis, and Being Turned Away

In July of 2023, I was kicked out again, this time permanently. The stated reason was a behavioral issue, specifically because I had begun videotaping my sessions after losing all trust in their accountability. No one suggested I might have been misdiagnosed. No one suggested I might no longer need dialysis. I was simply discharged.

I then went to the ER three days a week for about a month, still never missing a session. Each visit meant waiting roughly twelve hours a day for a three and a half hour treatment. Eventually, the hospital told me they would no longer dialyze me because I wasn’t sick enough. It wasn’t considered an emergency.

I told them I didn’t want to wait until I was sick. I had been told, and had read, that a person could survive a week or even a couple of weeks without dialysis. That understanding came directly from my doctors and sources like the National Kidney Foundation. This was around late August of 2023.

I continued returning to the hospital, asking if I was sick enough yet. I was turned away repeatedly.

My Nephrologist Dropped Me

Around that same time, my nephrologist abruptly dropped me as a patient. The only explanation given was that I had “lost the trust of the doctor.” No further reason. No transition of care.

Lost her trust.

The Question

Looking back, it feels less like medicine and more like damage control. If I was misdiagnosed, or if my condition had improved, no one would have told me. The system had no incentive to question itself.

The question that still haunts me is this:

How many others are there?