My husband, David, has PKD. He recently had a bilateral nephrectomy. When we met, he hardly had any symptoms.  He’d also been – he was recovering from an aortic dissection surgery and so some of the symptoms that were probably PKD-related blended with that incident as well.  But as time and years went on, he became more tired. It was difficult to work full time, but he continued to.  And that could mean that he comes home and goes to bed for the evening at 6 PM, but he continued to push through up until the point that he had his nephrectomy. 

Being his caregiver before his nephrectomy wasn’t difficult, it was just making sure that he ate a well-balanced diet as much as he could.  Since his nephrectomy, the first couple of weeks, I’m very fortunate he healed very well.  I would drive him to dialysis and take him to doctor appointments, but he was cleared to drive within the first two weeks, I believe, and he’s been taking himself to dialysis in the evening.  I’ll go and join him when I get off work so that he isn’t hanging out there by himself and trying to keep him company to pass those four hours.