Originally published February 4, 2016 To say this has been a challenging week is a bit of an understatement. Paul and I were very excited to be able to begin home dialysis. His last in center hemodialysis session was on Monday, after a trip to Charlottesville for PD training. We are definitely going to miss the wonderful people at Zion's Crossroads UVA Dialysis Center. Everyone from the staff to the other patients were friendly, helpful and so supportive. But on the other hand, no more 50 mile round trip 3 times a week. No more wasting 3 hours a day 3 times a week, not counting driving time. No more hemodialysis side effects!!! But, home PD is not exactly a walk in the park either! It's important for us to remember that this is a life saving treatment for Paul and while some things may be easier, none of this is actually easy or enjoyable. For example, just to have the "luxury" of doing dialysis at home Paul had to undergo surgery to have a catheter implanted into his abdomen. While the surgery itself went smoothly, recovery has been painful. Through all of this recovery and feeling yucky Paul has never missed a dialysis appointment. His outlook has remained positive, and he keeps looking forward and seeing the benefits that will come from the pain. The picture above is a glimpse into what happens with home PD. The first thing is that we don't use the heart catheter and there is no blood involved! Paul has an I.V. pole which holds the bag of dialysate fluid. This bag is connected to both a "dial" or control switch mounted on the pole and there is also an empty bag attached. Paul must hook his catheter to the control switch port in order to drain the fluid from his body before switching the dial to fill. Draining takes about 15 minutes and he has to weigh the bag to make sure that he's pulled at least what he put in, and if he's been retaining fluids he may pull a bit more. Then he switches to fill and the new bag of solutions flows into his body. This takes about 20 minutes. At the end of the fill he can clamp the hoses and disconnect leaving the fluid to dwell around all of his internal organs and absorb toxins in place of his kidneys doing their job.
Dwell time is about 4 hours, so he repeats this procedure every 4 hours throughout the day (the goal is 4 bags per day) and fills before bed. The solution remains in his peritoneum through the night (up to 10 hours) and he drains and refills when he wakes up. He must begin his day by getting on the scale, taking his temperature, getting a standing and sitting blood pressure reading and putting all of this information on his chart. Each drain bag must also be recorded on the chart and once a month we will have to take 4 drain bags and a 24 hour urine collection in to the home dialysis team for his labs. We're sure that with time this will all become routine, but right now, it's new, and it's challenging and we are a bit overwhelmed. Within the next few days we should be able to see a marked difference in how Paul feels because his body is being cleansed all the time instead of just 12 hours a week. In preparation for a possible transplant, which is our ultimate goal, Paul went to an oral surgeon yesterday and had 9 teeth removed. The reason for this is that any teeth that have damage cold cause problems and infection after he gets a new kidney, something as simple as an abscess could lead to failure of the new kidney. So again, we are just living with the hope that the pain that he's going through will lead to him having a new and functioning kidney before too long. Again, we are waiting for Paul's disability payment to begin in May. I am working online from home to bring in a little money and within the next few weeks I should be able to work at least part time outside the house as we get settled into a routine and wait for transplant information. Paul is able to do some computer jobs so if you need any work done on your computer and can get it to us he'll give you a great price and excellent work! (727Customz) If you need blog posts or articles for your website, contact me!
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AuthorPaul and Suzanne McKoy''s journey with kidney disease and Home PD. These blog posts have been pulled from the original "All for Paul" website and blog that we used to keep friends and family updated while we were going through this process prior to Paul's transplant on April, 13, 2017. ArchivesCategories |