SFCC has students that are handling school, life and a dialysis schedule everyday, waiting for a kidney transplant.
Along with academic life and the studies to be completed some students here on campus are also going through dialysis treatments in the wait for an organ to be available for transplant to their body. With treatments multiple days during the week, the schedule conflicts between school and dialysis can add to stress to these students.
According to the US Department of health and human services, there are 118,106 people waiting for a life saving organ to be donated. Of these, 96,134 people are waiting for kidney transplants.
“I have worked with numerous situations, surgeries, illnesses and accidents over the past 35 years which impact an individual’s ability to attend and or participate in class,” Ben Webinger, who works in the Disability Support Services center at SFCC said.
“Each student’s situation is examined on a case by case basis, in each situation we will look at flexibility as a possible accommodation option.”
Rowene Ennis is a 54 year old student here at SFCC and she has been waiting for two years to be put on the waiting list here in Spokane for a transplant.
“This is my first college experience ever, and I love it,” Ennis said. “Two times out of 10 I feel as though I’m weak and don’t have enough energy to walk around campus.”
Ennis takes her dialysis in the evening as opposed to taking it during the day like many people tend to do. This is to help ease her school schedule conflicts throughout the school year.
“I had really high blood pressure and because of the nocturnal dialysis, I was able to have my blood pressure medication discontinued as my levels went back to normal after a year,” Ennis said. “This process has done wonders for my body and has raised and lowered some of my levels back to normal.”
Alaric Goodman is yet another student at SFCC waiting to be put on the waiting list. His schedule for dialysis however is not a nocturnal process.
“With how my dialysis schedule is now, I have to make sure all my classes fit into that,” Goodman said. “Some days are bad in terms of how I feel, but I still have to get my homework done.”
Goodman is still waiting to hear from his transplant doctors about financial and medical responsibilities regarding a kidney.
“Which basically means they want to know if I can pay for it and take care of the kidney once I have it,” Goodman said. “I’m hoping tests will show some friend could donate, but if not I will be waiting on a kidney from a stranger.”