By Jean Louis Clémendot

I’ve loved being on the high seas for as long as I can remember. As a child, sailing on the Biscarrisse’s pond and Annecy Lake in Haute Savoie in France was a favorite past time of mine. My family often spent our summer holidays in Greece and Turkey on rented sailing ships.

My love for boating continued in adulthood. In 1997, I purchased a 50 foot sailboat that was originally built in 1969. I spent nine years fixing it up so that I would be able to sail on it solo. I felt a great sense of pride when I launched it in 2006, sailing around Corsica and Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea.

My dream was then to sail to Patagonia in South America and pass the Horn Cap. As I prepared to get the boat ready, I began to feel sick. Years before, doctors diagnosed me with kidney disease. I am a twin – born with an impaired urethra which made urinating very difficult and increased pressure on my kidneys. I used to suffer from urinary infections and, more serious, prostatitis (inflammation of the prostate gland). I was diagnosed with this impairment when I was 28 years old. A first then a second surgery temporarily stopped the infections and allowed me to recover. Twenty-two years later, doctors diagnosed me with renal failure and a surgery to try to correct the problem revealed I had cancer.

Those were difficult days for me. I was in and out of the hospital for a number of years. Doctors informed me that one day I would need dialysis to stay alive - that time came sooner than I expected.

I thought I would have three years to sail the world before I would have to start dialysis. That would give me plenty of time to sail to Patagonia. However, that dream would have to be put on hold. In the summer of 2009 doctors told me I had reached the late stage of renal failure and I needed to start dialysis.
The thought of dialysis scared me. I believed it would stop me from enjoying life and keep me away from the seas. And then I started learning about my dialysis options. If I chose hemodialysis I would have to go to a dialysis center three days per week. Peritoneal dialysis (PD) would give me more freedom – freedom to possibly one day set sail again. I chose PD.

Dialysis is a frightening thought. It took me some time to get use to the catheter and hooking myself up to the machine. But with time, it became routine. Sometimes I forget the catheter is there. And connecting to the catheter is fairly simple. Once I’m connected, I can do lots of things like cook, eat, watch TV, read, email and surf on the Internet, work on the boat and play tarot with my friends. I can dialyze myself just about anywhere – and I have been all over the world. It just takes being organized.

After I was on PD for a while, I wondered if I could get back out on the open seas. I talked to a PD nurse and she relayed a story to me about a patient of hers’ who dialyzes himself wherever he travels. That story gave me the confidence to head back out to sea. But before doing so, I spoke to my nephrologist, a PD specialist, then a second nephrologist and a sailing teacher.

Months later, my life long dream came true. I found myself in the wide open sea with nothing around me for miles but the dark blue waters. Dreams do come true, but you have to want it and believe you can do it. I am not letting kidney disease slow me down. My hope is that fellow kidney patients will follow their dream before too much time sails away.

You can follow Jean Louis Clémendot’s sailing journey online by visiting www.jeanlouisclemendot.fr.

Jean Louis Clémendot continues to sail around the world on his sailing boat. While writing this article, he was sailing around the Caribbean Sea.

PD is one of the available treatment options to remove waste products and excess fluid from the blood when the kidneys are no longer working properly. PD offers more flexibility by allowing patients to dialyze wherever they may be - at home, at work or on vacation. For more information on PD, order your FREE copy of AAKP’s Understanding Your Peritoneal Dialysis Options brochure. It can also be downloaded by visiting www.aakp.org/brochures/peritoneal-options. 

This article originally appeared in the May 2010 issue of aakpRENALIFE.

Posted 5/10/10.  

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