By Cynthia Flash, The Seattle Medium
At age 90, retired Col. James Manning has lived such a full life it’s like he is more than one person.
He served in the U.S. Army, rose to the rank of colonel in the Army Reserves, worked as a technical writer at Boeing, a teacher at the former Asa Mercer Junior High School in Seattle, a salesman for IBM, and eventually retired from the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board. He’s active in his church, has been married two times, and has 13 children, 10 grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.
Along the way, he adopted a family of Vietnamese refugees and is proud to count the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of that family as his own.
He’s lived a good life. A fulfilling life. One that sets a stellar example for others.
But Manning acknowledges that as the decades passed, he sometimes ignored his health. He gained weight – tipping the scale at 260 pounds at one point. He didn’t always eat healthy food or exercise. He also failed to recognize his family’s history with diabetes and high blood pressure.
Diabetes and high blood pressure are the two leading causes of kidney disease and when Manning was around age 65 and was preparing to retire, he learned that his kidneys were weakening and likely would eventually fail. He was doing some financial planning and considered buying life insurance. He went through a physical exam and learned he would be rejected for the insurance because he had chronic kidney disease.
“I was devastated by this,” said Manning, who like many others with kidney disease was completely surprised by his diagnosis. Fifteen percent of Americans have chronic kidney disease, and 90 percent don’t know it because kidney damage usually occurs without symptoms. Worldwide it affects 850 million people and is the 11th leading cause of global mortality.
March is National Kidney Month and a time to focus on kidney disease and its causes. Other risk factors include heart disease, smoking, and family history of kidney disease. Those who are African American, Asian American or Native American, people who are overweight, and those over age 60 are at higher risk for developing kidney disease.
Manning’s doctor gave him medication, told him to reduce the salt in his diet, and drink more water and cranberry juice to flush his kidneys. He followed his doctor’s advice and was able to slow progression of kidney failure. However, by 2004 his kidneys had weakened to the point where he needed dialysis because they could no longer clean the waste and water from his system.
“I was scheduled for my first dialysis session at the Auburn clinic at 5:30 Sunday morning, March 14. I never will forget it,” he said.
Manning initially received dialysis treatments three times a week, for four hours at a time, at Northwest Kidney Centers’ clinic in Auburn. Then he heard that he could get dialysis at home and learned how to do it himself. Home dialysis is preferred because patients can dialyze more often and for longer periods of time, which is easier on the body.
He continued to dialyze at home for 11 years and even was able to travel with his portable dialysis machine, enjoying trips around Oregon, Washington, Florida, Washington, D.C., and the Caribbean. He had the freedom to continue to live a full life.
But in his ‘80s he returned to in-center dialysis treatments, this time choosing the new Northwest Kidney Centers’ Federal Way East clinic. Throughout his relationship with kidney disease and Northwest Kidney Centers, being a patient wasn’t enough for Manning. After starting dialysis, he became an active volunteer for the non-profit dialysis provider, serving on its board of trustees for 12 years, and lobbing for dialysis patients in Washington, D.C. He participated in a Facebook group for home hemodialysis patients, offering advice based on his experience. And he has enthusiastically supported Northwest Kidney Centers’ annual fundraisers, even speaking on behalf of patients at the 2017 Breakfast of Hope event.
Despite his challenges with kidney disease and other health issues, Manning remains upbeat and involved. “I’ve been kicking right along,” he said.
To find out if you are at risk for kidney disease, take the quiz at www.nwkidney.org/quiz. Find more information about Northwest Kidney Centers at www.nwkidney.org.
