Home hemo adventures

August 4, 2005

Pierre,

Sorry to hear about your troubles last night.

I'm glad everything worked out finally.

Hopefully tonight's dialysis will be less eventful!!!

~Dana

Home hemo adventures

After my emails on the group last night, I started putting myself on

dialysis. After testing the water and letting the water purifier rinse for 5

minutes, and after turning on the dialysis machine itself, I'm setting up

the tubing and what not - all the stuff that hangs on the machine. When I

open a new box of dialyzers, I realize they've sent me the wrong ones. They

sent me F7 NRe instead of F70NRe. Big difference, which I didn't notice

right away because the numbers look very, very similar (a space after the 7

instead of a zero), and the label is exactly the same design and the same

colour. I couldn't use those even if I wanted to, because they don't include

caps on the connectors where the dialysate lines connect. You need the caps

while doing the priming. I check the other box, same thing.

It's after 10pm by now. I decide I can't really skip the treatment. Normally

I could, because nocturnal hemo is so efficient. But the night before last,

I only had a short 2 hour dialysis at the dialysis centre (I have to do this

every few months so they can put the Transonic machine on me to check the

flow in my fistula). Plus, I'm already more than 2 and half litres above my

dry weight, and I've eaten plenty of salt and potassium. So, missing a

treatment is out of the question at this point. I mean, if I really had to,

I could skip it until the next day, but it would mean being very

uncomfortable and not being able to drink or eat much for the next 24 hours.

I decided to call the duty home dialysis nurse. I get " All our operators are

busy, please stay on the line " ! After a minute or so, the operator comes on

and I tell him I need to talk to the home dialysis on-call nurse. He says

I'm sorry, all the clinics are closed at this hour. I say, " Look, I know

they are closed. There is a home dialysis nurse on call after clinic hours

for home dialysis patients, and I happen to be a home dialysis patient " .

Obviously, nobody every told that operator. There are only about 17 of us on

nocturnal hemo in Ottawa, but the on-call nurse also handles the 200 or so

home PD patients, many of whom put themselves on the automatic cycler at

night - so it's not like it's a new thing. He looks in the listings and

finds the pager number. A few minutes later, the nurse calls - not my

regular nurse. She says, " Can't you just use those? " . I say, " No, it's not

the right type, plus these don't have any caps " . To make a long story short,

she made arrangements for me to pick up a couple of the right dialyzers at

the General Hospital dialysis centre.

I get to the hospital and I go to the dialysis centre. Luckily, the hospital

is only 10 minutes away - actually a pleasant little drive through city

streets, in the cooler night air after a scorching 30-plus degree Celsius

day. When I get there, the dialysis centre is all closed off and boarded up!

It's under construction. I ask people where dialysis is now. Nobody knows. I

end up at the emergency desk, where the nurse tells me, " Well, dialsysis is

all over the place right now " . I say, " Well, there must be somebody there

somewhere because the home dialysis nurse talked to somebody here who has

two dialyzers for me " . I'm told to wait until they call someone. After about

10 minutes, a dialysis nurse shows up with my two dialyzers, and I go home.

I decide stop at a Tim Horton's coffee shop on the way, because I need to be

wide awake for another hour or so. I get out of the car and I realize I

don't have a cent on me, and they don't take Interac. No bank machine

nearby, so I just say " Fxxx it " and go home.

By this time, when I get home, it's about 11:30, and I still need to go

through all the dialysis machine's alarm test, the priming and the

recirculation. This all takes about an hour on a good day. I go through it

as fast as I can, because frankly, I'm getting a little upset by now. I

mean, it's late, and I want to get on and go to sleep. I end up starting the

actual treatment at about 12:20.

...but the treatment itself went well. Not a single alarm all night.

A technician is going to another patient's place not far from me this

morning, and he will drop a box of dialyzers to tide me over. I get my

dialyzers directly from Fresenius Medical Care, so it appears to be their

mistake. It's the second time this has happened. Last time was in April.

Man! I would still never go back to in-centre hemo, though. It was bad

enough having to go there the other night for the Transonic measurement.

Pierre

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Thank you

August 4, 2005