Nonetheless, on Thursday Carlucci could be spotted running up and down a basketball court in a spirited pickup game, keeping pace with other teenagers who may never have endured more than the seasonal cold.
Eight children with kidney disease were hosted by the National Kidney Foundation of Northern California & Northern Nevada at the YMCA Camp Jones Gulch in La Honda last week. From Sunday to Saturday, they attended archery sessions, learned rock climbing, played basketball and flew down a zip line. At one time or another, all of these children have been on dialysis and received kidney transplants. But for one week anyway, they were simply children.
 Camp counselor Bret Belshe, 18, watches as camper Clayton Johnson shoots a basket at YMCA Camp Jones Gulch. Johnson is one of several kids at the camp who are dealing with kidney disease. |
"The unique part of this is they can be a regular kid," said Sheila Doss, nursing director of research at Satellite Healthcare in Mountain View, which administers healthcare during the week. Doss also said that kids tend to adapt better to the demands of kidney disease than adults, because they accept it and work it into their lifestyle.
"After a transplant," Doss said, "there's pretty much a full recovery, then medication for life."
Due to the medical demands that kidney disease puts on children - even those who fully recover - it sometimes can be difficult for patients to participate in pastimes that are otherwise common to young people. Dialysis, organ transplants and medications don't correspond to a child's status quo.
This year, however, for only the second time in the eight years that the kidney foundation has been sending children to the camp, none of the participants needed dialysis during the week. Anna Trujillo, a program officer for the kidney foundation's San Francisco office who was onsite for the week, along with Doss and four volunteers, said that there had been no major health incidents with any of the children this year.
Carlucci has attended the camp for all eight years and was candid about his experience with kidney disease. He said he doesn't remember his first transplant, but his second one represented a difficult decision.
"That one was hard for me," Carlucci said. He had been on dialysis for so long, he admitted, that a transplant scared him. But he eventually went through with the procedure this winter and received a new kidney from the cadaver of a 30-year-old man.
Since the camp is only open to children between the ages of 8 and 17, this was Carlucci's last year. But he still has plans to participate in future camps. "I want to actually be a counselor," he said after finishing his pickup game.
Juan Villa, 29, has been volunteering at the camp for five years. He also had kidney disease when he was young and remembers how much it can impede a child's day-to-day life. "Sometimes I want to help (the children) because I didn't want them to suffer the same," he said.
In future years, according to Trujillo, the National Kidney Foundation may host a second camp in Sacramento. It also hosts a family camp every year during Memorial Day weekend at Camp Jones Gulch.
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