Dialysis isn’t the end of your life – I have a beautiful family, I have a professional job, my wife married me, despite knowing about my kidney disease!

I am Santosh Adi, currently staying and working in Chennai. I was born in a small village in Medak district of AP (now Telangana). My father inherited some agricultural lands from our ancestors, and with a keen interest in politics, he became the Sarpanch (head) of our village. Since his family made him give up his studies to look after farming to continue the family’s legacy, he wished a different life for both my brother and me, and admitted us to a school in Hyderabad.

One morning, all of sudden my body had swollen up. It was the next day of Sankranti, and my parents immediately rushed me to the nearest hospital. After all the necessary tests done, the nephrologist diagnosed me with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). At 16, this came to me as a shock since I did not know anything about kidney disease, and it felt like a death sentence – my dreams of becoming an Engineer and an Airforce Pilot shattered right in front of me. “That’s it, life is over!” – I thought.

I completed my high school and later managed to get an admission to study Aircraft Maintenance with financial support from my family. At this time, I was trying to cope with CKD with the help of regular doctor follow-ups and by eating the right foods and avoiding sodium intake with proper medication.

After 3 years of college, In August 1999, I had to move to Mumbai from Hyderabad to pursue my apprenticeship (unpaid) with Air India for the next 2 years. Many job opportunities came my way, but as life would have it, nothing progressed to fruition due to my health condition. I had lost all hopes of finding work, and soon a corporate aviation company offered me a job with less pay, but it gave me a ray of hope. I met a girl (now my wife) here, and I eventually fell in love with her. I later changed jobs to a foreign airline; though my posting was in Mumbai, I had to frequently travel to Bahrain and Doha for my training. Once Mumbai had heavy floods when I was in Doha, and this girl got trapped for 3 days. She survived with the hope to reunite with me upon my return. Next, we decided to inform our families of our decision to marry each other. A few months before our wedding, my doctor suggested I get a transplant with the help of an immediate donor in the family. Four months into our wedding, I got the transplant surgery – my mother donated her kidney.

My life wasn’t mine anymore. It belonged to my family – my wife and my beautiful little girl, my daughter. All this while, I was shifting jobs. I worked in Dubai for 3 years and came back to Mumbai. I took up a job here.

Life was going on well until I noticed my creatinine levels were shooting up. My doctor confirmed I would not be able to sustain the kidney for long and advised me to get fistula access as I would require dialysis.

In December 2018, I started my dialysis. Life happens despite kidney disease – I lost my job. For the next few months, we struggled to make ends meet from our savings and with help from family and friends.
My wife and my daughter were my biggest support and strength during these tough times.

When I thought this was the end – a company offered me a job in Pune. I had to undertake a 15-day posting in Kolkata before starting work in Pune. I was looking for dialysis centres and came across NephroPlus. I found a centre in Kolkata, and the staff were warm and welcoming. I was requested to get a serology test done upon landing, and my experience at the centre had been great. That’s when I found out that NephroPlus has a chain of dialysis centres throughout India, and they make the life of people like me who need to travel for work easy. Their dialysis treatments are uniform at all the centres, owing to their standardized SOPs and years of operational excellence. They address patients as “guests” with a core value of “guest care comes first.”

Dialysis patients CAN achieve the same results as any other normal person would – I wish companies understood this before rejecting candidates for employment.

The journey so far has been long, with many ups and downs. Now I am working in Chennai and going to NephroPlus centre here.

I have been lucky enough to have had a solid support system & I wouldn’t have made it this far without my family & friends. I want to express my gratitude to all the dialysis technicians at NephroPlus, keep being the superheroes you are.

So, live your dream, go after that job & prioritize yourself. Getting diagnosed with kidney disease or being on dialysis doesn’t mean you stop being you and living your life.

I hope my journey helps other dialysis patients and makes them twice as powerful & fearless as it made me.