If OBL did have end stage kidney failure, he is probably dead --if treatment wasn't available.
Whatever do you mean by 'grosser'?
My husband tried the Continuous Cycler Dialysis machine...that's where you're hooked up while you sleep....but that didn't work out for him--the lines kept kinking.....and with the little noises the machine kept making, he couldn't sleep and it even woke me up.
He wound up doing the Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis--where you do the 4 bag exchanges a day; which uses the peritoneal membrane in the abdominal cavity....of all the way to have to do dialysis, he much preferred this one because he didn't have the 'up and down roller coaster rise with his blood pressure' from the machines; he could travel easily with CAPD; he didn't need a 'partner' to operate a machine;; he wasn't stuck sitting for hours at a time.
The only thing that could possibly be considered 'gross' was the little tube which extended out from the abdomen through which the dialysate was exchanged...wasn't gross that I could tell...never interfered with anything.