Matt was hospitalized.  It turns out that the "cold" he had for the last 9 months wasn't that at all.  His kidneys had started to shut down and the fluid was accumulating in his body and his lungs making it seem like a cold.  He got very ill and had his mom took him to the clinic.  The nurse practitioner there, bless her heart, took a look at his medical history and his blood pressure and sent him straight to the ER.  She had previously worked at a Nephrology clinic and knew exactly what she was dealing with. Through the ER, he was admitted straight to the Intensive Care Unit of St Mary's Hospital in Duluth, MN with very high blood pressure (250/1??). He was diagnosed with kidney failure and kept in the ICU for a week until his blood pressure was controlled.  

Dialysis was started at that time with the hopes that once his blood pressure was controlled, his kidneys would start working again.  A chest catheter was surgically placed into a blood vessel near his collar bone as the access point for dialysis (See venous catheter for temporary access http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/vascularaccess/).  Matt was discharged from the hospital and began his dialysis regimen of 3 times per week. We were very optimistic at this point and Matt was certain that he would be off of dialysis in time for the trip he had booked to Alaska in August.