Introduction

Hello: My name is Gregory Coleman.

And I Am A Dialysis Patient.

Reason For Admission: This 46-year old African-American male with a three-week history of hypertension was admitted to St. Agnes Hospital with chief complaints of generalized weakness and anorexia, lethargy, and intermittent nausea and vomiting. He was found to have renal failure on admission, with creatinine 24, and elevated blood pressure. On admission, he also had some nausea and was a febrile.

This is when my very painful journey of discovery began.

On Tuesday, December 3, 2002, I was admitted to St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, MD.

This took place after several hours of sitting at home sick, while my best friend was at work.

Once she got off from work and saw the condition I was in, she insisted that I go to the emergency room immediately.

She had personally witnessed my suffering for over 3 months; and she knew how hard I had been fighting the powers to be in order to try and save my life, my job and my sanity.

I had been suffering from shortness of breath, vertigo, intense stomach pain, vomiting, excessive weakness, severe back pain, deadly blood pressure levels that sometimes reached 200/120, very intense panic attacks, depression, anxiety and insomnia.

The reason that I suffered for so many months was due to the fact that I had repeatedly went to doctor after doctor, clinic after clinic and agency after agency, only to be given tests that involved listening to my heart, asking me to cough, and then asking me a series of questions about my symptoms and then prescribing everything for me from anti-depressants, to purple pills for acid reflux, to laxatives, to blood pressure medications, etc, etc, etc.

After several months of pain and suffering, I finally found out why I was not getting the star treatment when I went to all of these clinics.

First of all, they were not star clinics.

And second, I was not a star due to the fact that I did have a job, but I did not have any health insurance.

I sincerely hope and pray that the rest of this book will be available to read by those who need to and those who want to, as soon as is, humanly possible.

Thank you,

Gregory Coleman

Author