Top 25 Dialysis Blogs

Dialysis Blogs

Saturday, January 21, 2017

The "Two Years on Home Hemodialysis", edition.

Good Saturday morning!  Heard "Too Late", by the Tavares yesterday, so I'm on a Tavares kick. Anyway. Brian and I started training for home hemodialysis January 2015. I became interested in home hemodialysis the spring of 2014. I opted not to train at that time because we knew we'd be moving from Detroit to Las Vegas soon. I did attend info sessions. I've told you before about the different modalities (types) of dialysis. I started out with emergency dialysis with a catheter inserted in my groin. Yeah. That wasn't fun. Then I got a catheter inserted in my chest and was off to in center dialysis. I eventually got an AV fistula in my left arm..I insert needles in an arterial (A) access and a venous (V) access. 

During this time I was also talking with my friend Wendell who was doing peritoneal dialysis (PD)..a tube inserted in the stomach.  And he came very close to convincing me that was the way to go. He had an aversion to needles. Lol. Anyway. He had me over to show me how PD worked. I asked questions and even had a consultation for the surgery to have the tube inserted in my stomach. Ugh. I finally backed off the PD because it seemed that I wouldn't be able to swim. That just wouldn't do. As an aside, Wendell ended up with encapsulating peritoneal sclerosis. It killed him and it was a side effect of peritoneal dialysis. So yeah. I passed up on that option. 

Flash forward to me moving to Las Vegas in July 2014. My center here wasn't as nice as the one in Detroit. It was a corporate owned center. My Detroit center was not for profit and the care and resources reflected that. Anyway. My first day doing dialysis in Las Vegas I met my social worker. And almost the first thing she asked me about was ..was I interested in home hemodialysis. I about jumped out of my chair..needles and all and said yes!  She said it would 6-8 weeks. It took 6 months. 

First day back after th Christmas holiday  I get a call that the home hemo nurse will be stopping by the condo to check it out...to see if it would be ok for home hemodialysis. I get to dialysis the next day and my tech tells me it's my last day and my chair and time have already been reassigned. What!?!  I got pissed. Somehow I thought I'd be doing in center dialysis while going to the training center. That happens when no one explains "things". What really happened was I reported to the training center the following Monday and started training...by learning how to use the home hemo dialysis machine..doing treatment during training. Duh. 

Training lasted 4 weeks. Brian learned what he needed to do..and now it's almost second nature. I learned to stick myself with needles. A lot of people get real scared  about that, but it's not bad. The closest I can describe is like getting an IV stick.  But it doesn't hurt. But people just have needle phobias I guess. However, by inserting my own needles I decrease a lot of issues. Heh. The second day the nurse hands me the needle and tells me to stick myself. I was so surprised that I took the needle and stuck myself!  Talk about a nonissue! Lol. And with that we were on our way to doing hemodialysis at home!  

That's it for today. I will continue this in the next entry. The weather is nice out here. Not hot..cool on the evenings. Snow on all the surrounding mountains. We can actually see it snowing on the mountains, while the sun is shining in the valley. Tomorrow is supposed to be windy and rainy. Brrrrrr. 

On the dialysis front, I had a crash episode on Wednesday. I HATE those. I feel like I'm dying and can't do squat about it. Brian comes through by pushing the saline into me. The crashing happens when too much fluid is removed during. So, the solution is to replenish me with saline. 200-300 milligrams usually fixes the problem but still. And yes. I feel it coming on. I get hot, clammy, light headed. This time my chest hurt. I breathe very deliberately. And I have enough time to let Brian  know I need that saline. Hubby comes through like a champ. Never panicking. That retired Sargeant thing comes in handy! 

Anyway. Take care. Enjoy the day. 


This is a few days after the chest catheter was removed in 2014. The scars have mostly healed. 


This is what the catheter looked like inside of me. And yes those clips were attached to me outside of my body. 


No comments:

Post a Comment