The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
It is worth looking at chronic illness with its pain, suffering and increasing limitations from the perspective of time. By time we mean subjective time relating to the perception and dynamics of the malady in the patient's impressions and the role which time plays in the structuring of the patient's life and experience. The main focus of this article is the experience of progressive kidney failure (uraemia), a condition which requires regular dialysis or kidney transplantation. Due to its specific crises, hopes and periods of waiting, painstaking medical procedures lasting many hours and turning points in the disease's trajectory, time and its passage are a particularly adequate instrument with which to analyse the experiences of patients with uraemia. These experiences are discussed against the backdrop of selected elements of health care and attitudes towards transplantation which provide the social context for patients' struggle with illness.