FINALLY!!!!

At last I can say that we managed to get in a full dialysis treatments! I think that the machine was faulty to begin with and then the cassette malfunction just put it over the edge! Anyway, the new machine seems to be working fine. There was only one alarm. It happened during one of the drain times. It just told us that he was draining slowly. Woody slept through the alarm so I had to get him wake up enough to shift around and I checked the drain line to make sure that there were no kinks in it etc. Then I pushed "ok" and he started draining again and no more alerts sounded. I figured about how much time till the next drain and set an alarm as the drain times seem to cause us thermoset problems. One of the times I came down to check, the drain time was already finished. When I came down this morning just prior to him finishing, I found him sitting in his recliner...he has enough tubing that he can move about and not be tethered too closely to the machine and cart. I thought that it had been a good sign to find him sitting up, but it was that he had been sick. He said that he thinks he got sick because S abdomen was so full. I'll address that with our dialysis nurse. There are still lots of questions to discuss with the dialysis nurse and his kidney doctor AND the nutritionist. From start to finish last night it took 11 hours. About an hour of that is me just going through all the set-up procedures. I feel that that time will go down once I am more familiar with the routine! Maybe? Hopefully! The procedure for getting him disconnected is much less time consuming. I asked him how he felt today and he said that at first he felt very weak, but after he took his new B-12 vitamins that he felt like he had more energy...the pharmacist had said that they would help him. We both slept off and on during the day today. Our bodies have to get used to this new routine. I think that we will both sleep better once we get through several treatments that aren't problematic! Eventually this will become very routine...we hope! We are two boxes less today. After two treatments we empty two boxes...since we use two different strength of the solution. Nathan and I put tonight's solution bags on the card table in the family room and Nathan took two empty boxes off the stack. Nathan also packaged up the old, faulty machine so it can be picked up. I was told that it would be picked up tomorrow...when I have no idea...so guess that I am tied to the house till they come...if they come! Oh, I want to explain about having no air on when we are getting him connected...it is not because Woody is cold, it is one of the "rules" that I have been given...no open doors, windows, no fans or AC going...in other words no moving air in the room to stir up germs. The warmth is enough to up my speed for getting him connected! It was pointed out to me that we will be cold when it is winter