Celebrating Fall and Friendships At the Dialysis Center

Two key players in the campaign for the dialysis center, dialysis patient and advocate Mary Sylvester and Wendy Franklin, Development Director for North Country Hospital, celebrate at the Fall Fest luncheon for dialysis patients and their families.

It wasn’t a family reunion, but it sure felt like one as the happy participants ate, joked, and told stories last Thursday at the Ron Holland MD Community Dialysis Center at North Country Hospital in Newport.
The happy people were dialysis patients, their families, and several members of the staff from North Country Hospital and Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington. Although the center is located at North Country, it is operated in partnership by the Burlington-based hospital.

North Country Hospital hosted the Fall Fest luncheon Hospital President and CEO, Karen Weller, commended the relationship that has been forged between the staff at North Country and the Fletcher Allen employees who operate the dialysis center. She noted that they all have one thing in common, a concern for the care of the dialysis patients - patients that are almost like family to each other and to the staff.

“I don’t think we have run into a real glitch,” Weller said. “It’s wonderful to have you here.”
“Everybody involved in this institution and dialysis center, from patients, staff, to family, feel very positive,” Dr. Rick Solomon explained. “This is really a state of the art dialysis center…We are just very very proud of the family that comes here three days a week.”

“I’ll tell you what, this is a dream,” patient Mary Sylvester said. She told how in the three years of driving to a dialysis center in Chittenden County before the center in Newport opened, she and her husband of 48 years and her trusty driver, Irving, went through four cars.

The very nature of dialysis creates a bond between patients and staff, and patients and patients. They need this blood cleansing procedure three days a week. The process typically takes upwards of four hours. During this time the patients sit in comfortable recliners as the staff closely monitors the process. Meanwhile, many of the patients take the time to catch up on a nap, read, and as common, to enjoy one another’s company. They celebrate together, and they mourn together. Many of them form deep mutual relationships.

Among two of the patients to form a strong bond that transcends the walls of the center are Mary Sylvester and Miguel Cazares. “We are great friends,” Sylvester said. “Miguel and I are the types that are not going to let this slow us down. We’ll always be friends.” Cazares and his partner, Tammy Sparks, echoed Sylvester’s words.
“Mary and Irving are like family,” Sparks said.

If everything proceeds as planned Sylvester and Cazares' days in the center might be numbered. They are extremely hopeful that a new kidney is on the horizon for both of them. A kidney transplant is about every dialysis patient’s dream. If the transplant is without setbacks, the patient will no longer have to undergo dialysis. But the two friends and their families say that their friendships will transcend dialysis.

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