DIALYSIS: REGIONAL CENTER LETS PEOPLE LIVE WHEN THEIR KIDNEYS SHUT

Rodney VanGennip of Jackson passed the time with a word search puzzle while undergoing dialysis at the Renal Treatment Center.

Susie Duschell, LPN, prepared a dialysis machine for the next patient.

About a year ago, the SEMO Dialysis Center changed names and owners. Pat Glueck, the nurse administrator, said the Renal Treatment Center on Bloomfield Road at Interstate 55 in Cape Girardeau provides better quality care than ever before.

The Renal Treatment Center, which was purchased last year by the fourth-largest dialysis services company in the country, still provides just one service -- kidney dialysis, which cleans the blood's of waste products when the patient's kidneys have stopped functioning properly.

Glueck said the facility is one of 94 centers operated by the parent company, Renal Treatment Centers Inc. She said the size of the company means more support personnel and people who assure quality care are in place.

Staff-to-patient ratios are 3-to-1, Glueck said. Thirty-six patients report to the Cape Girardeau facility three times a week, to be hooked to a dialysis machine for up to 4 1/2.

"The patients represent all walks of life," Glueck said.

The youngest patient is 22, the oldest is 88.

Some of the patients are on the transplant list, Glueck said, waiting for new kidneys. With new kidneys, they can stop dialysis treatments.

Most of the patients on the transplant list are young, desire careers and want to live free of dialysis. Because of the treatment schedules of dialysis patients, they typically can't hold jobs.

Rodney VanGennip, 32, of Jackson suffered from juvenile diabetes which eventually shut down his kidneys. But unlike other patients who gave up employment because of their dialysis treatments, VanGennip's employer, Chuck E. Cheese, lets him schedule his work hours around his treatments.

Although his 2 1/2 years on a kidney-pancreas transplant list is the longest of anyone in the area, VanGennip says he hasn't given up hope.

As for his dialysis treatment, VanGennip can continue it indefinitely. Because of their age, many patients don't seek a transplant. Some have been reporting to the center for eight years.

VanGennip said he began dialysis on Aug. 9, 1993, and didn't know much about the process. "It isn't as bad as I understood it to be," he said.

Three times a week, VanGennip has a tube connected to an artery in his arm and another tube connected to a vein. Blood is extracted from the artery, flows through the dialysis machine which serves as a kidney, and returns the blood to the vein cleaned of waste products. Like other patients, he is monitored during the process with his vital signs checked every thirty minutes.

VanGennip remains hooked to the machine every other day for 3 hours and 42 minutes. Other patients are on dialysis three times a week for varying times, depending on the results of monthly lab work monitoring the amount of wastes in the bloodstream.

Some patients sleep during dialysis and other watch television or read books, Glueck said. Because the patients come to the facility so frequently, the patients and their families get to know each other and meet in other social settings.

"We really get to know the patients," she said of the staff. "This is really a rewarding career for me because I'm able to get to know the patients and help them live a life as normal as possible."