Did you know?
In 2018, a total of 2,782 transplant procedures (all organs) were performed in Canada. Of those, 57% were kidney transplantation. As you know, after kidney transplantation, recipients need to learn to adapt to lifestyle recommendations, medication treatment, changing social roles and emotional challenges that affect them on a daily basis. The same way you manage your bank account or your house, you need to keep on top of how the transplanted kidney and your chronic kidney disease are affecting your life after transplantation and take action, so YOU are in charge of your health.
For the Long Haul
Looking after your transplanted kidney for the long term is just as important as looking after it in the early days.
An excellent example of how living with and taking charge of a chronic disease can affect people’s lives was provided by Wagner and colleagues (2001) who compares living with a chronic disease to flying a small plane.
“If it is flown well, one gets where one wants to go with the exhilaration of mastering a complicated set of challenges. If it is flown badly, one either crashes or lands shakily in the wrong airport, reluctant to ever leave the ground again. The patient must be the pilot, because the other possible pilot, the healthcare professional, is only in the plane a few hours every year, and this plane rarely touches the ground. If chronically ill patients must pilot their planes, then the role of healthcare is to ensure skilled pilots, safe planes, flight plans that safely get the pilots to their destinations, and air traffic control surveillance to prevent mishaps and keep them on course.”
Why Self-Management
If you take charge of the physical and emotional problems that come along with the kidney transplantation, you will be that pilot that flies and lands the plane successfully.
The skills needed to help people living with a health condition have been known since the late 80’s. This group of skills has been called “self-management skills” and they aim to empower persons to thrive with a healthcare condition.
To be effective, Self-Management, or Taking Charge, requires good problem-solving and decision-making skills to:
- Re-assess changes in symptoms;
- Establish and modify short-term and long-term goals; and
- Develop an action plan to achieve these goals.
Taking Charge
Effectiveness also requires knowledge and good communication skills to:
- Find and use available resources; and
- Collaborate with your healthcare team.
Luckily, these are skills that can be learned and mastered. However, it takes time and practice. To be successful, the skills need to be practiced every day.
Taking charge of your life with a transplanted kidney doesn’t mean you are taking on your new situation/health status alone. On the contrary, it means that you are actively joining your healthcare team in the best way possible. It is very important to understand how the kidney transplantation affects your life, so be confident to seek help and advice whenever you are concerned, or you notice a change in your symptoms/condition.
In this web-based guide, you will find many strategies that will help you take charge of your life with a transplanted kidney. The topics included in this website were identified by kidney transplant recipients and healthcare professionals (clinicians and researchers). The content for these important topics was developed by experienced healthcare professionals based on their knowledge on kidney transplantation as well as the latest research evidence. The topics of this website were all revised and improved by kidney transplant recipients and healthcare professionals.
There are a lot of ideas and actions in this website that will help you get started and choose some topics as a beginning. Don’t try too much at first so you don’t become overwhelmed. Everyone is different, so respect your own pace.
Following the strategies on this website is a helpful way for you to become effective in taking charge.
We wish you a safe and pleasant flight!