Airdronian shares story during Kidney Health Month 

Each of us has our very own sleep position that we favour. For 73-year-old Winston Gour, the sleep position he is forced to assume every night is on his left side as he is hooked up to a dialysis machine for up to nine hours. 

Gour was diagnosed with kidney failure in 2018 when nephrologists found his kidneys were functioning at 28 percent, and then at one point, Gour’s kidneys were only functioning at 5 per cent.  

The kidneys are the organs in one’s body that act as a filter, removing waste and extra fluid, while also removing acid in the body, allowing a healthy balance of minerals such as sodium, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium, in the body. Ki

“Winston had a catheter inserted on November 20, 2018. That was the first day of our dialysis journey,” said Carmen Bizier-Gour, his wife. “That was when he first started dialysis. Winston would be sitting in the chair [in the hospital] getting hemodialysis for four hours, three times a week. It was very hard on his heart and his blood pressure, it would plummet. I would have to wheel him to the car to get him home. And he basically slept the rest of that day.” 

Gour would continue hemodialysis for three months, travelling back and forth to Calgary, before he and Carmen would find out that there is a way for Winston to continue dialysis from the comfort of his own home. Peritoneal dialysis (PD), also filters one’s blood in a similar way to that of hemodialysis. 

“It's not easy, but we've been doing it for three years now, but it’s not a cure, though it does extend the person’s life,” Carmen said. 

When asked if Winston had thought of a kidney transplant, he vehemently said no. 

“I have thought of it and I've rejected it because the risk factors are so not acceptable to me and to the donor.” 

​  Winston Gour undergoing kidney dialysis at home (Photo provided by Carmen Bizier-Gour)  ​

Though Winston’s dialysis is performed at home, his daily routine consists of carefully measuring how many fluids he consumes. He is only allowed to consume one and a half litres of fluid a day; otherwise, he runs the risk of fluids building up in his body. 

“[If that happens] we need to drain those excess fluids or else he starts getting fluid around the lungs,” Carmen said. “I try my best but it is very challenging. Between the monthly blood work, the daily weighing and blood pressure readings; that’s is how we determine what foods he cannot have and what foods he should have. There’s a lot of juggling with dialysis, but it’s between than the alternative.”  

According to The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, “an adequate daily fluid intake is about 15.5 cups (3.7 litres) of fluids a day for men and 11.5 cups (2.7 litres) of fluids a day for women.  

Gour’s wife said that the one piece of advice she wishes she could impart to people is to not ignore the signs of kidney issues. 

“Preventative; is your best measure, like keeping an eye on your creatinine level and your GFR (glomerular filtration rate),” Gour said. “Unless you ask, most doctors don't tell you. So my suggestion to people is to ask your doctor about your kidney function,” 

Before Winston was diagnosed, he said that there were warning signs, naseau, such as loss of appetite, weight loss which saw him drop 50 pounds and an aversion to foods he once loved. 

“[I was] ignoring some of the signs that were there, until the doctor said your kidney is failing,” he said.  

Today, even the simplest pleasures of life that Winston used to enjoy are exhausting. 

“I used to like to walk to the park across from us. I find that really difficult.” 

Carmen Gour said that there is a huge shortage of live donors for kidney transplant patients and she pled with people to educate themselves on live donation. 

“People have two kidneys, if they have two healthy kidneys, they can donate one,” she said. “And most of them will live full lives with one kidney, and it will help extend the life of someone else.” 

According to the Kidney Foundation of Canada, in 2020, 75 per cent of the 4,300 Canadians on the waiting list for an organ transplant are waiting for a kidney.  

The cost to the health care system for chronic kidney disease is approximately $40 billion per year. 

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