How I Became Homeless

People that stumble upon this blog might wonder how I got to a point that I needed to start panhandling or how I ended up homeless in the first place. Some people might wonder why I just don't "get a job." I haven't really addressed how I became homeless in the first place so here's a little background about me.

I have a life threatening illness and I'm disabled. I have End Stage Renal Failure, my kidney is so bad I now have to do dialysis treatments to stay alive. I only had one kidney to begin with. My left kidney was removed when I was an infant. My right kidney was saved but very damaged from an obstruction. I had several surgeries when I was a kid, my last major surgery when I was 8 years old.

Being born with an obstruction really isn't that uncommon. If treated most babies will recover well and both kidneys will recover. I was very sick until I was 8 months old. My birth mother didn't get me to the hospital until it was too late to save my left kidney. My right kidney was very damaged. To this day she will not apologize or even acknowledge that she was a shitty mother and that her actions and disregard for my health cost me a lifetime of medical problems. If she ever did I could probably forgive her but that will never happen. She happens to be a very cold-hearted person. She is the kind of mother you read about in the news and you just have to shake your head. Not only did she not get me prompt medical treatment but she used to let my biological father beat me and mentally abuse me. What kind of mother does that? 

So that's how my medical problems started. After my last surgery when I was 8 I seemed to be doing OK. My kidney was holding up pretty well but I still was spilling a lot of protein in my urine which was a sign my kidney wasn't 100%. In my early 20's my kidney function declined but I was still able to get by. A person can live fairly well with just 25% function of a solitary kidney believe it or not. Anything under 25% and a person doesn't do too well. At 15% function it's time to start considering dialysis or a kidney transplant.

In my early 30's my kidney function declined further to around 49% which isn't too bad. Just 2 years ago it was at 12% and I had to start thinking seriously about dialysis. I have another blockage but my kidney is so damaged my doctors don't even want to try and fix it this time. Just 2 years before I found this out I had a doctor misdiagnose me at a hospital. I remember the ultrasound tech telling me she saw fluid backing up into my kidney. This is very bad. the condition is called hydronephoris.

Normally I would be able to file a lawsuit against the hospital and the doctor but in the state of Idaho where this happened the statue of limitations is only 2 years on medical malpractice lawsuits. I just missed the cutoff. Bottom line, the doctor should have known there was a problem given my history and the evaluation of the ultrasound technician. I could have had surgery to save my kidney. At that point I still had about 25% kidney function which amazingly enough we can do pretty well with just 25% of one kidney. Anything under 15% function and dialysis is the next step. My kidney function right now is just 7%.

That's my medical background in a nutshell. Being on dialysis isn't easy. Even if I wanted to go back to work it would be difficult right now. I'm not supposed to lift anything over 10lbs and I have to do four dialysis treatments every day. There are people on dialysis that do work, I'm just not in a position that I can right now.

Because I'm young I get a very small Social Security check every month. I get less than $750. In my area that wouldn't even cover rent for a room let alone a studio or 1 bedroom apartment. I still need money to buy my medications (Most are covered but I have to pay copays of as much as $30 and I currently have about 12 prescriptions, not including my dialysis solution.

When the kidneys fail so many other things go wrong. Blood pressure increases because you can't remove excess fluid and sodium as easily. Kidney patients get anemia. I have to take a hormone shot once a week to boost my hemoglobin count. Anemia makes me pale, tired, cold, and weak. Loss of kidney function also puts me at risk for heart attack and stroke. I also have to be careful because I'm at a high risk for sudden bone fractures. Kidney disease sucks. I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy.

Some people live OK for a long time on dialysis but a lot don't. The sad reality is 25% of dialysis patients don't make it 5 years. Me being in my 30's, this scares me. Now I know there are a lot of older people on dialysis and very sick people so this skews the numbers a bit. Even still I belong to a kidney support group and I know members that have passed away that are younger than me. My best option would be a kidney transplant. I'm working on that as I write this. It's not a simple process.

I'm not blaming kidney disease for making me homeless. It was a combination of several things. But I want to clear one thing up, I don't do drugs, I don't smoke, I don't even drink anymore. I had just got out of a relationship, I wasn't getting along with my family, and I had no job, so I moved to Southern California. Except one important thing, I had no money!

Laguna Beach Sunset

I thought I could just live on the beach for a few weeks until I got on my feet. This was in 2007 and I was still somewhat healthy but the recession kicked in and Southern California got hit hard. I might have picked the wrong place at the wrong time. I slept in a park my first night on the wet grass. The next night was Christmas Eve 2007 and I found a homeless shelter in Laguna Beach. This shelter was one of the nicer ones in the area. They used a gym in a church to house the local homeless. The only problem was they only ran the shelter on nights when it got under 45 degrees or it rained. The other nights you had to sleep outside somewhere.

That Christmas Eve was rough. Just one month before my grandparents passed away. I was really close to them. They died within 3 weeks of one another. Everything was crashing down on me hard. My grandma always made Christmas so special. Now I just wanted to forget it was even Christmas.

My Grandma and Grandpa

Once you become homeless it's really tough to get back on your feet. It's not for the faint of heart. I don't really recommend it. You kind of get sucked in. That's what happened to me. My health kept getting worse and my family didn't care. Even when I found out I would need dialysis soon, my own mother told me I couldn't stay with her. She's so fucking heartless she wouldn't even let me store my dialysis supplies at her house. I swear I could be dying on her porch and she would just step right over me like I didn't even exist.

I've always had a bad relationship with my family. My mom left my alcoholic father when I was 13. He wasn't just a drunk, he was mean. He mentally and physically abused me. I ended up running away from home several times. I pretty much grew up on the streets or living with friends or my grandparents. It's a wonder that I didn't get caught up in drugs or worse. It's also a big reason why I knew I could make it in Southern California with no place to go. I've always been a free spirit. That's just the kind of guy I am.

So that's pretty much how I ended up on the streets the first time. Everyone has their own story. I'm not really blaming anyone. It was a lot of things combined that got me there. Did I make some mistakes along the way that may have contributed to my situation? Sure. But I didn't do anything to ask for my kidney disease. It was the hand that I was dealt. Most people end up homeless due to drug abuse, alcohol abuse, mental illness, bad health, or a combination of all four things. When you have a family that doesn't give a shit, then it's the perfect storm.

I've made mistakes along the way but I've also been put in situations where I had to make tough choices. This past year my marriage was failing. I think my health problems put a lot of strain on our marriage. My wife was much younger than me and I couldn't give her everything she needed. We also had a lot of financial problems because I wasn't bringing in much money. Everything was on her shoulders. Do I blame her? No. She loved me and we tried to make it work.

In the end I probably stayed longer than I should have because of my health. I knew I had to make a change. I knew I had to go home even if that meant I might end up homeless. I just didn't have many options. I thought I might be able to stay with a friend but that didn't pan out. I asked my family for help but as usual they could careless. My best friend is going through his own tough times, his mom recently passed away and he's been out of work and he has to take care of his kids. I couldn't bring myself to ask him to help me. That leaves me homeless but not hopeless.

2 Years Later...

Well, it's been a while. Almost two years to be exact. A lot has happened in my life since. A lot has changed. I don't even really know where to begin.

I'll start off by letting everyone know that I'm no longer homeless. I'm still living on the beach, but this time in an apartment on the East Coast. I'm also married. I guess you could say I'm stable now. But my life is anything but "normal."

Although I am off the streets, my health has taken a turn for the worse. I have End Stage Renal Disease which means without a kidney transplant I will have to go on dialysis.

Kidney disease is almost a silent disease. Sometimes there are no symptoms until you are in the late stages of kidney failure. By then you are shell-shocked. Even some of the later symptoms can be really vague. Sometimes at that point it's too late to save the kidneys. I knew I had kidney issues. I just didn't know had bad it had progressed.

I've been sick for quite a while. Kidney disease is something I have dealt with my entire life. I'm 37 years old now but I was born with a defect that caused blockages in my ureter. Something that has never been explained to me is that when I was an infant I was very sick but my mother failed to get me adequate medical attention. My mother took me to the doctors a few times but blood was never drawn and they sent me home every time. It wasn't until I was 8 months old that my mother finally took me to Children's Hospital in Seattle where they discovered what was causing me to be so sick.

My left kidney was destroyed and had to be removed. My right kidney was damaged and I needed surgery to repair the obstructions and get my kidney working correctly. I wish I could say that was the end of it and I lived happily ever after, but that wasn't the case. For whatever reason I developed new obstructions and had to have major surgery again when I was 3 and 8 years old. I don't remember much when I was a toddler, but I remember how sick I was when I was 8 and it sucked.

After my last surgery when I was 8 years old I finally seemed to turn the corner. For years I seemed to be doing much better. Serum creatine levels are something a doctor looks at to evaluate kidney function. Normal levels are anywhere from .6 - 1.2 deciliters in a healthy person. When I was 13 years old my creatine was 1.3. Just to put that into perspective, when I was 8 years old and very sick my creatine levels were over 9.

As I've aged, my creatine has slowly risen. In my early 20's my creatine levels were around 1.8. That's a bit above normal but not at all that alarming. When I reached 30 my creatine hovered around 2. My creatine maintained in the low 2's until about 4 years ago. Since then my creatine has risen considerably. Last summer I was at 4.2. Now it's 6.9.

In December I was admitted to the hospital for an unrelated condition and found out my creatine had risen to 5.5. This isn't good. This hospital was a small community hospital. I met with a nephrologist (kidney doctor) and a urologist. They did an ultrasound and found that I had another obstruction causing fluid to back up into my kidney. My condition is called Hydronephrosis.

The doctors at this hospital wanted to do surgery right away to try and save my kidney. I wanted a second opinion just to make sure I was going to get the best treatment possible. I'm glad I decided to get that second opinion. It turned out the surgery was unnecessary. It would have probably made my condition worse.

A few days after Christmas I started feeling really sick again so I went to the ER and was admitted to the hospital. During my stay, a team of doctors examined me and ran more tests and determined that the surgery was unnecessary and might even do more harm than good at this point. In layman's terms, my kidney was so damaged from this chronic obstruction that relieving the obstruction would not save my kidney, but probably put me on dialysis even sooner.

My creatine dropped down a bit to 5.1 at this point so the doctors discharged me. Since then I have had several follow-up appointments with different doctors. All of my doctors agree that without a transplant I will need dialysis at some point. It all depends on how fast this progresses.

When the kidneys go bad so many other things go wrong. One complication of CKD is anemia. A normal adult male should have a hemoglobin range of 13.5 - 17.5 g/dL. Mine in late December was 7.9. I was very pale and weak as you can see from the picture above. I was always tired and couldn't hardly walk up a single flight of stairs. In January I started getting Aranesp shots. The Aranesp shots help do the job that the kidney is failing to do and that is to tell my body to make more red blood cells. These shots are very expensive. They cost several hundred dollars a vile. The shot is given once a week until the hemoglobin gets back into a safe range. My wife is trained to give me the injections so I don't have to make a trip to the doctors every week.

That's were I stand now. My kidney function isn't getting better. It's only a matter of time before I will have to go on dialysis if I don't get a transplant. I went to my renal education appointment and I think I'm going to go with peritoneal dialysis. It seems to be better tolerated. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to travel or anything else yet but hopefully if it comes down to it I won't have to be on it for long. It's treatments that I have to do at home 4 times a day but I guess you have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

For now all I can do is take things one day at a time. I'm optimistic despite my health challenges.