Willing through a life of relentless adversity
By: Jordan C.
Sickness. Exhaustion. Insomnia. Loss of appetite. Loss of concentration.
Teens have their days where these symptoms are present for short periods of time. For senior Eric Price, this is his every day.
Price was diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease when he was in the seventh grade and has been dealing with the complications ever since. Price remembers the events leading up to his diagnosis vividly.
“Before I was diagnosed, I was getting migraines and vomiting every day,” Price said. “I went to the eye doctor thinking the spots I was seeing with my migraines were the problem. After the doctor looked into my eyes he said it was due to a great amount of pressure in the back of my brain.”
The visit to the doctor worsened and Price was soon rushed into hospitalization.
“The doctor said it was serious and sent me to the emergency room. My blood pressure was 275/175 (a pressure that strokes often occur at), and they got me into a room as fast as they could. The tests started,” Price said. “I was very distressed and could not calm myself down, which made my blood pressure continue to rise.”
After Price’s condition was stabilized and the test results came out, the source of Price’s problems was revealed.
“The doctors determined that something in my kidneys was causing my blood pressure to spike,” Price said. “The tests came back and they saw that there was scar tissue in the kidneys caused by the disease.”
Price was emotional after his diagnosis.
“I was devastated and mostly confused,” Price said. “I didn’t understand how this could happen, and how it could happen to me.”
The next steps that Price would take to treat his symptoms were as simple as taking some oral medications. Those did not solve the problem, however, and his condition progressed.
“At first all I had to do was take a few pills, but the disease worsened and my kidneys started to fail entirely,” Price said. “After about a year or so, I had to start dialysis treatments.”
A session of dialysis for Price lasts for three and a half hours, costs $1,200, and serves to filter every ounce of his blood through an artificial kidney.
“After I went to dialysis the first time, I was even more devastated by what my life had so quickly become because it was such a grueling process to be hooked up to this machine for so long and so many times a week,” Price said. “I went through dialysis for eleven months.”
What Price needed to live a normal life again was a donor and kidney transplant. For those eleven months, it was strictly a waiting game. Once he received a transplant, a year later, his body rejected the transplant and Price was forced to undergo surgery once again, this time to remove the donated kidney.
“I was really lucky to get a kidney transplant,” Price said. “But it only lasted for a year and then my body underwent rejection, a process that resulted in the doctors needing to remove the kidney and put me on dialysis treatments again. And here I am today, still waiting for a kidney.”
The treatments usually go according to plan and are painless, but sometimes Price has to endure immense amounts of pain and suffering. Price recalls one episode where he was in so much pain, the nurses were crying in empathy.
“It felt like I had a charlie horse through my entire body,” Price said. “The nurses were crying all around me and had to give me morphine to stop it. It really freaked me out because they didn’t know what caused it. It was so painful; I was aching for two days after the incident.”
Friends like senior Tiago Santana have made Price’s lifestyle a more bearable misfortune by supporting him every step of the way. Santana, as well as others, accompany Price to dialysis multiple times a week, morally supporting their best friend.
“It’s hard for me to see my friend have to go through so much,” Santana said. “But it makes me glad that he has such a great group of best friends that are always there by his side to keep him company and help him through it. At first, it was very difficult to see my friend hurt so much, but just as Eric has learned to live with his disease, I have learned to live with him having it.”
Senior Taylor Ashton is another one of Price’s close friends who has witnessed his adversity.
“I think it’s hard to look at other students and peers around school and know that he can’t participate in the same sports and activities that they can,” Ashton said. “You know it’s got to be tough because he really wishes he could live a normal childhood like everyone else.”
Being close with Price, Ashton reflects on his friend’s optimism.
“What people don’t realize about Eric is his own personal drive and motivation to want to continue on, get the transplant, and continue with treatment, knowing that it will get better,” Ashton said. Price knows he is fortunate
to have a caring support system of best friends who always have his best interest at heart.
“My friends are always there to support me,” Price said.
“They come with me to treatments, help me take my pills on time, and help me watch what I eat. Without them here, I wouldn’t feel positive toward it all.”
Santana’s Price as a friend goes so far that he is, literally, willing to give a part of himself to Eric.
“I am going to do something to help him,” Santana said. “After graduation, I am getting many tests done to see if I am a possible match for donating my kidney to Eric. Hopefully I will be a perfect match and will be able to.”
Price’s symptoms made for a dynamic lifestyle for the last six years, including major fluctuations in weight and appetite.
“The pills made me eat a lot. I gained tons of weight and after I had the rejection I became sick and wouldn’t eat,” Price said. “When I did eat, I would vomit. I lost seventy pounds in five months.”
Complications like these and other things forced Price to skip out on the life of a normal high school teenager.
“I felt really left out being at home sick for three months,” Price said. “I used to have to wear a mask anytime I went out into public to protect myself from germs and that was really embarrassing for me. I am also a member of the Green Valley Band and I was forced to miss the trip to the inaugural parade for President Barack Obama. I watched my friends coming down the street on the screen as I laid in my hospital bed and thought to myself, ‘If it wasn’t for all this, I could be there.’”
On top of falling behind in his social life, Price has also been struggling with school for these last few years.
“I was absent from school for three months after my transplant and two months when I went through rejection,” Price said. “I had to do homeschooling to even try to keep up. I also have some missing credits that I have to work really hard to take care of.”
Price deals with different emotions about his condition every day, and finds ways to deal with them as the months pass. Sometimes he has moments of selfpity, and sometimes he remedies his situation with the gift of music.
“I occasionally feel sorry for myself, but I know it will only make things worse,” Price said. “Music really makes me feel better, too. On the car ride to dialysis I usually listen to “Fix You” by Coldplay. I can relate to it so much; it explains the hard and troubled times you go through to reach the happy ending. The song says, ‘Lights will guide you home,’ and I see my transplant as those lights.”
Price feels that throughout all the adversity he has faced and still has coming his way, he has the ability to see the silver lining of his situation.
“I’ve been taught a lot of patience and responsibility because of this,” Price said. “I also always look at things through the perspective of if things are bad now, they could always be worse. It really makes me think that every day is more valuable when I have something so big at stake. All I can hope now is that the lights of a cure will one day guide me home, and that someone will fix me.”
