Jason Uesato
Jason and Dani, his bride of a few months, had eaten out and were just getting home when his extreme shortness of breath sent her running for his father. While the elder Mr. Uesato performed the Heimlich Maneuver, Dani called 911. It was September 20, 2002. The next day, they started him on hemodialysis.
That’s the way Jason Uesato tells the story of his introduction to chronic kidney disease (CKD). He thought he was dying and he says that by the look in his father’s eyes that night, Dad did too.
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What got him to this point? Jason was diagnosed with diabetes the year he graduated from high school. But says he was in denial until 1990 when a numbness in his leg finally made him seek medical help. That was when it was made very clear that his diabetes was real and that he could no longer deny or avoid it. Until then, even after the 1978 diagnosis, he “ate everything and anything”. Talking about those times, Jason says, “I don’t want even my worst enemy to have this happen to them! |
I can tell you “I shoulda, woulda, coulda” done this or that or something else not to have gotten in to this situation in the first place.”
Jason was in dialysis from that fateful day in September until receiving his new kidney in four years later in September, 2006. Of the process he says, “Twice before getting this kidney I was called for the screening process. And twice I was not the recipient. After the second time, I got kind of down. But I guess the third time is the charm! It is truly a second chance at life. Yes, I had to wait and wait. There are two sides to the waiting and seeing whether or not you’re going to be chosen. One side is objective science: you can’t do much about that. The other side is subjective: it is the side you can influence. You are what you think! I decided I was going to be an “A” student! I was going to have the perfect diet, the perfect everything so that I would be the most perfect candidate for the kidney that I could be. I considered it like going for a scholarship. I worked to give 100% to maximize my chances of getting the scholarship.”
Asked for advice he’d give to others, Jason says, “I feel kind of hypocritical to be saying it … cause, I definitely did bring much of the problem on myself … I denied the diabetes diagnosis, I ate whatever bad stuff and way too much of it. But I know that without my wife there to make that 911 call and to get my dad, I would have died on September 20, 2002. But just because it might be considered by some to be hypocritical, I can’t stand by and not try to alert other people who might be making the same mistakes I did.”
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