How Kidney Disease Education Changed David and Brenda's Journey

When kidney disease changed their lives, David and Brenda Gallagos faced it without a roadmap. They figured it out as they went — and came out the other side with a message for anyone on the same journey: the more you know, the better prepared you'll be.

David has been a type 1 diabetic since age 15. By his mid-thirties, complications from diabetes had taken his eyesight. Then, at 36, he broke his ankle. When doctors ran routine blood tests, they discovered his kidney function had dropped to nearly nothing.

At first, David refused dialysis. For three weeks, Brenda watched him stop eating, struggle to breathe, and fall into exhaustion. When he finally went to the hospital, he needed dialysis urgently. A hemodialysis catheter (also known as a central venous catheter) was placed, and 30 pounds of fluid were removed from his body.

When they left the hospital, they weren't sure where to turn. "We had no information," Brenda recalls. "No resources, no literature, no follow-up." All they had was a doctor's phone number.

David began in-center dialysis in Texas, where he would continue treatment for the next four years. At that time, home therapy wasn't an option for David because the closest program was in another state. As Brenda stepped into the role of a care partner, she never forgot what those early times felt like — the fear, the uncertainty, the doubt.

Then Brenda took a step that would change her life and touch the lives of many others. With no healthcare background, she joined Fresenius Kidney Care, first working in a center as a Patient Care Technician and later becoming a Kidney Care Specialist in Greeley, Colorado.

Brenda says David's journey is the entire reason she chose a career in kidney care. "I don't want anyone to have the kind of experience we had," she reflects. "Early education makes the difference."

Now she teaches CKD education classes for people living with kidney disease. It is the resource she wishes she and David had in 2010.

"I was just so amazed at how the kidney disease education program really makes a difference," she says. "We were there once. I know what it means."

Recently, Brenda asked David to go through Fresenius Kidney Care's reimagined kidney education. Although he is blind, he navigated it fully using his iPhone's screen reader and found it informative, accessible, and easy to understand. Both Brenda and David want people to know that education can be a game changer no matter where you are on your journey.

"If we would have had more information," Brenda says, "it definitely would have changed the view of how we even looked at our quality of life on dialysis."