The "The Christmas Recap", edition.

Good Tuesday morning!  Whew! We finally made it past Christmas Day. Now it's the run up to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. And counting down the days until Shawn leaves. /Cry.  Anyway. We'll enjoy every moment until then. 

So how is it going?  Well right now I'm in the bedroom listening to the puppy trying to get into the room. Based on previous experiences with puppies, we limit where he can go in the house. All bedrooms and bathrooms are off limits. He has discovered he can open some bedroom doors. Anyway. We get up Christmas morning. Brian walks the dog, he and I have our Christmas coffee (coffee with Baileys), Dad lets us know he's up and we wait for Shawn. She gets up soon enough. We play Christmas music and pass out the gifts. Glen was the one that made out with all the presents this year. Lol. I purchased 2 toys early on and Shawn got him a toy. Saturday Brian and I went to Petco and guess what?  The toys were on sale!!  I don't know how many I bought...maybe 7,8,9?  Lol. Anyway. We put all of his toys in a gift bag. I put the bag on the floor and let him go at it. His head went in the   bag and the tail wagged!  He eventually tipped the bag over and all of the toys spilled out. He entertained himself with his toys for the next 45 minutes!  He did that one toy in his mouth and push or roll another toy around thing. Every now and then he'd bring a toy over to one of us to play tug, fetch or keep away. And that was enough excitement and activity that he crashed and burned for a good part of the day!  And I mean he went and crashed in his crate!!!  Lol lol. 

I got Brian a bunch of shirts and a gift card from Dillard's. He lost some weight and his clothes were ... big. Lol. Shawn had purchased a new computer. So Brian and I paid for the extras, at her request. We went to the Microsoft store at Fashion Show mall. Made the Apple Store look like amateurs. And the MS Surface pro. Wow. So light. Makes our laptops look like tanks. :-(  Dad wanted and received a new wallet and somehow a gift card to his favorite store got in the wallet. I asked for and received slippers..the tile floor is cold, a humidifier..the desert is dry, and a Fitbit...it's waterproof and can go into the pool with me!  It was a nice Christmas and we had pretty much agreed that the new house with the new stove, oven and dishwasher was the real Christmas gift for the family. <3  Loving my kitchen! 

We finally mastered the art of a small dinner. I have to add that we had a few hiccups. So. We had a rib eye roast, greens, cornbread, fancy rice and potato salad. Potato salad was made the day before. I must say that it takes me hours to make the potato salad. Brian and Shawn helped. Took less than 2 hours!!!!!  Brian thought he forgot an ingredient. Rushed to the grocery store to get it, and the when he got home he found the forgotten item (!).  Oops!  

Christmas Day, I planned to start the greens at a certain time, then I realized he'd purchased bunches of greens instead of the packages. Oops!  These babies needed to be cleaned and cut. Time to make the fancy rice. Had the onions and celery and chives. Somehow we lost the mushrooms.  Oops!  Ah well. I just added thyme and garlic powder instead. And finally the rib eye roast. 

The rib eye roast!  Brian ordered it a few weeks ago. And let me preface this with Brian can cook a roast and steaks to rival any steak house. So a rib eye roast sounded right and good. He ordered a 5 bone roast. Sounded good to me. He picks up the roast Saturday afternoon. When he returns home he calls me to the kitchen to see his roast. Whoa!!!  That thing was huge. HUGE. Oops!! Lol lol. Fred Flintnstone huge. Lol lol lol. We could have fed our entire cul de sac. Lol lol. Anyway. He started cooking it in the morning. And he had a precise method. And you know what? He cooked this huge rib eye roast to perfection. Cooked it medium and it was tasty. Yum. And we have a lot of leftover roast!  Lol. 

I did dialysis treatment Christmas Eve night. The blood leak sensor went off, but that was because I moved and pulled on the little cord. Brian reset it and we went back to sleep. We planned to do treatment Christmas night (right), but everyone was tired. We'll do it tonight. I guess if I have to do dialysis, I can do it on my terms, rather than being tethered to a location and time and rigid schedule. Dialysis is hard enough as it is. Ugh. I hate dialysis. I hate living like this. But I guess the alternative is no alternative. Lol. Well this paragraph went off the rails. I'm doing the best I can. 

Today we're finally going to see Star Wars. And Brian wants to use his Dillards card. And Shawn is giving him a mini Dillards shopping spree. Nice to have a kid who now has a few coins!  Lol. And I'll do treatment early. I am "off schedule" sort of. Deep water fitness is tomorrow at 8AM. I need to have the needles out of me for 8 hours to get into the pool. The scabs need to form so I can swim. I guess one day I'll go over bandaging and stuff after treatment. And. Shawn and I need manicures and pedicures!  

That's it for today!  Enjoy your day after Christmas. And the rest of the week!  Oh yeah. Dad went to the hot tub on Christmas Day. He just wanted y'all to know that!  ;-D

The "Christmas Eve 2017", edition.

Good Sunday morning! We're finalizing Christmas plans. Shawn arrived Tuesday evening. And it's been a blur since she arrived. Dad and Brian treated me and Shawn to lunch at the Top of the World restaurant in the Stratosphere, 101 or so stories up. We went last year and enjoyed it so it's now an annual thing. The view is spectacular and believe or not, the food is pretty good. We even splurged on desert. And of course we all shared. It's fun watching Dad digging into chocolate especially when he initially declines. 

Glen continuously surprises, entertains and impresses us. This is my 5th dog and he is smarter than our previous dogs. And that's a statement. He is a puppy though. He'll be 4 months on December 28. He gets that he needs to pee and poop outside. He also is trying to let us know he needs to go outside. He brings he's toys to is to play fetch, keep away and tug..those standard doggie games. He also will have toy in his mouth then push a ball with that toy and play fetch or chase by himself. Sometimes he will go into his crate at night by himself...putting himself to bed. And then he's figured out how to open closed doors...doors to rooms we'd like him not to enter. Like all of the bedrooms. Lol. He raises hell when dogs go by the house, or when the doorbell rings. I activated the blue tooth speaker to play some music. He really took offense at that. Lol. 

Then there's Christmas preparations. We'd initially planned to get a nice big tree. But having a puppy changed that. Even just having a dog in the past, we had to adjust. My first dog ate all the candy canes on the tree. Our last westie played with the ornaments at her level on the tree, so the bottom of tree was not decorated.   For Glen, we got a console table...which I wanted anyway and 3 foot artificial prelit tree. And instead of the lights we usually had inside on the Windows, we got a projector for outside. I actually like that. And guess who is gonna make out like a bandit tomorrow?  Lol. Everyone has bought lots of toys for him. And he'll get the rest of his vaccinations early next month, so we'll be able to take him out in public. And to a trainer!  Lol. 

On the dialysis front, I'm doing good. Feeling pretty good for the most part. I still have punky days, but it's part of the package. And every now and then I need to give Brian a break from all the work and tasks that are involved with me doing home hemodialysis.  I absolutely could not do this without him. And I am positive that by him doing this is increasing my life expectancy.  And in addition to this he pushes the hell out of me to stay active and do stuff. So yeah. He needs a break every now and then. I wish I could explain to you just how much he does. And when Shawn is here she's a huge help to all of us. And.  She and Glen are best pals. Lol. 

That's it for today. Enjoy your holiday!  

The "Finding Time", edition.

Good Thursday morning! I know I know. It's been a while since an entry. I need to find time to write. And time is an issue this time of year ... This year.  I'll start of with dialysis stuff. After Thanksgiving a component of my dialysis machine was causing problems. I'll try to explain. There are 2 parts to the machine. One is the actual dialysis machine. Now during dialysis you need a fluid called dialysate. Dialysate is the fluid that runs thru the body and removes the waste. Blood in, blood runs through the dialysate, toxins are removed and go into the dialysate and clean blood returns to the body. 

Well the machine, called Pureflow, that creates the dialysate crapped out. The dialysate is created using a premixed sack and tap water. Since the Pureflow crapped out we had to go to plan B. Dialysis patients always have a plan B, C, D and E. You know, that life threatening stuff. Anyway. The plan B is to use pre made bags of dialysate. Yes, we have some stashed away. All home hemodialysis patients do. Well there was another issue. I normally do dialysis at night 5-6 hours at night.  When I use the bags, treatment is 3-4 hours. Here's the thing. I use 7 bags of dialysate during regular treatment. Neither us nor my nurse could even contemplate how many bags I'd need for nocturnal. Lol. So I went back to short daily dialysis. Boo. Oh yeah. This includes adjusting the settings on the dialysis machine. Because it adjusts the flow and time and rate of removal. 

The company worked with Brian to fix the machine. And sending us extra bags. Yeah. This causes storage problems, but eh. Lots of packages from Fedex from the company. Finally late last week a technician came out to change out the offending part. Now I must say that the phone tech support is great. Lots of troubleshooting. So by the time the technician changed the part, the issue was solved. I finally went back to nocturnal this past Monday. I did retain more fluid than I would like during those several weeks, so now I'm removing it during treatment. It will take about a week or 2 to recover. Tell ya what though. I missed that nighttime treatment. Brian and I both disliked having to break up the day for treatment. And as an aside, Glen had to go to his crate during treatment. He is absolutely not allowed into my bedroom. Lol. Puppy needs to learn more commands!  

I also wanted to touch on another type of dialysis, peritoneal dialysis. Long time readers may recall me explaining it. Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) differs from home hemodialysis by filtering and cleaning blood within the body rather than through an outside dialyzer. With peritoneal dialysis, the patient's abdomen is filled with a special solution called dialysate that helps remove waste and extra fluids from the blood. PD requires a permanent catheter is the stomach. Strict attention to a sterile atmosphere must be maintained. The nifty thing about PD is you can do this alone, no need for a partner. And if you freak out about needles, PD is for you. But you do the PD exchanges (dialysis) several times a day. And possibly use a cycler at night. PD was not an option for me because of the catheter in the stomach. I like swim to much. And quite frankly, needles don't faze me. But it is a viable option. 

Well that's it for me for today. I'll make an effort to write another entry soon. Update on holidays, house, and Glen. And for the fun of it, it's unseasonably warm out here. Loving it. Especially after seeing the early snow in Michigan. :-(

Enjoy your day!  

These are the dialysate bags. And yes, when I travel I have to use this set up. The company will ship the bags to my hotel or location......IF I stay at least 3 days. Less time than that then I have to cart them around myself. And each box contains 2 bags. I use 7 per treatment. I can cart around a lot of boxes. :-(

The dialysis cartridge. This is where the magic (cleaning of the blood) happens.

This is the setup I use at home. The stand is the Pureflow machine. 

This a SAK which creates the dialysate from tap water. Takes 6-8 hours to fill up. 

Diagram of peritoneal dialysis. The catheter stays in the stomach and can be highly susceptible to infection if you neglect the asceptic process.