The "Problem Solved", edition.

Good Friday morning!  I know, I know. 2 days in a row again.  Well just don't expect this to happen often. I just want to report back about yesterday. 

Wednesday night I had trouble with my dialysis stick. After 3 tries, I couldn't not access my venous line. This effectively stopped my dialysis treatment for the night. That didn't make me happy. Of course dialysis at all never makes me happy, however, I kinda need it. To, you know, stay alive. The good news is I had done treatment on Tuesday. I never, ever go more than 2 days without treatment. Again, I know. You're like, but Pat you used to have weekends off.  And I did. But that was before I did home hemodialysis. The whole process is different. 

So back to what was happening. The sticks on the venous access had started to become problematic within the last week, but I attributed it to a change in needles....deep inside I didn't think the needles were that different. But what else it could it be?  The next event was during the blood draw.  Brian has to draw blood for 3 tubes. The first one went fine.  The second draw just stopped. Way unusual. But no time to figure out why. We go to plan B and use syringes to pull blood. As we pull out the blood draw tube we notice a blood clot (Warning!  Warning). I thought that was strange. I just don't clot. We finished the blood draw, I fussed with the needle, finally got it in and treatment went fine. 

Then there was the Wednesday debacle and finally Thursday morning. After a bit of fiddling around with the needle, I got it in and we started treatment. Early on the machine complained about the pressure in the venous line, but Brian did his magic on the machine and we continued on. Although Brian kept on giving the dialysis machine  the side eye. About 3/4 of the way to completion the machine stopped with a red 30 alarm. We get yellow and red alarms. Reds stop the machine cold turkey. Brian looked up the red 30 error. That is a clot in the machine. Stop treatment now. Do not pass go.do not collect $200.....you get the idea. We couldn't even rinse back. Just stop and disconnect. And yes. This was a first. After Brian broke the cycler (machine) down, we saw the clot in the dialyzor. The good news is I got most of the treatment in. 

I called my nurse. Well well well. It was time to visit the vascular surgeon. Time to check out my beautiful life saving fistula. I was to show up at the doctors office in about and hour. How's that for service?  We arrive at 1:30. The receptionist has all my info because my dialysis nurse sent it in, plus all of my medical. Information appears to be on some giant Las Vegas medical database. No matter where I show up, the info is there!  Lol I'm digress. After about 5 minutes I get called in the back. I recognize  the nurse from my visit to the vascular surgeon's office in January. She remembered me also. I was the one who had an allergic reaction to the dye during the procedure. Am I special or what? We talked about the meds I would receive during the treatment. I got hits of fentanyl and mega hits of Benadryl to offset the reaction to the dye. 

I get prepped and talked with the doctor.  Walk to operating room. Get prepped some more. Same personnel as before. Doc comes in and the meds are administered. I get to watch the procedure on a monitor. Sure enough, my accesses were clogged and closing up. So of course clots would form and stop everything. The doc did an angioplasty on the fistula, inserting a ballon and expanding the ballon, with expanded the veins.  I felt everything, but it didn't really hurt and I'm high as hell anyway. I just start talking and talking and talking. Lol. What are you doing now?  Why are you doing that?  And on and on. And then it was over. 

I got wheeled out, put on a gurney, given some apple juice and graham crackers. The wooziness went away enough for me to get to the car and Brian drove us home. The process was completed in less than an hour an a half. My fistula is fixed and I'll be back to doing treatment tonight!  I'm happy the problem was solved. I'm relieved the problem was solved. Yes. I was concerned all kinds of ways, but I have a good medical team and they acted quickly to solve the issues. I'm quite thankful. 

And that's it. An all dialysis entry. This is normal for a dialysis patient with a fistula. The fistula will close periodically and will need an angioplasty. Now I know the symptoms.  And to be honest, this is exactly what happened in November 2014. Heh. I even wrote a blog about it. Bet I won't forget it now!!!

Have a great weekend. Not swimming today. 24 hour directions want the site to stay dry for 24 hours. I Have a busy weekend with meetings. Why are they all on the same weekend?  And one day I'll tell you about seeing those huge British Airways 777s on the landing pattern. Which kinda passes close to the condo!  

Opening up that vein!