Goodbye to the Familiar

Well, tonight it is out with the old and tomorrow it is in with the new. I am still very hesitant about this new "adventure." I about backed out today when we had our last visit between Woody's appointment with the peritoneal dialysis nurse and when we met up with his hemodialysis nurses to get info for tomorrow. I guess they realized that I was serious as one of the HD nurses checked with the scheduler at the in-center HD clinic. We were told that they would try to find a place for Woody. But by the time we were finished talking, it went back to us at least trying home HD training. I will say, they showed me the notebook that they have set up with directions for every step and it looks better than what I got with PD...lots of pictures...and if you start at the front of the book it takes you through all the steps of getting him to the point of being taken off the treatment and then you flip the book over and go from the back and that gets you through the steps of disconnecting him from a treatment. So IF I can stand seeing his blood go through the tubing maybe we can get through this! (rolling eyes!) My comment to the nurses that if it took them years to be trained as nurses then how in the workd can I learn this in just a few weeks. I feel like I have Woody's life more in my hands with this kind of dialysis than when we did PD. The main thing that we had to be careful of was peritonitis with PD...which would have been bad, but mow there just seem to be so many other things that can go wrong that are life threatening. At the moment we have access for dialysis through two tubes that are inserted into a vein that goes directly into his heart...which has a high possibility of infection. We will be doing it through this access until he has the surgery to out in the graft and he heals from that. They said that healing is 6-8 weeks...better than the months that I thought it was. They said that the other type of access, a fistula, takes much longer to heal. Once his graft is put in and healed then I will be doing needle sticks into the tubing of the graft...I don't have to find a vein. (another eye roll!) I warned Woody today that maybe I didn't have to find a vein, but I would be putting a needle through his skin. (more eye rolls). We still haven't heard from the vascular access associatrs about when his surgery will be...which doesn't surprise me. Once we get things going, then the nurses will contact them to see about an appointment for the graft surgery. We almost had a reprieve from starting tomorrow. The Fresenius HD nurse had contacted the vascular access associates to get a post op report to make sure that the access line was in the right place and they hadn't returned her call...so that meant that she couldn't shoot heparin into the line to make sure that it is open. We left the appointment without having heard from them. Not hearing from them would have meant that we couldn't start hemo tomorrow. The nurses said that we would hear from them one way or the other by the end of the day. Around 2pm one of the nurses called to say that they had gotten the post-op report amd that everything is go for tomorrow morning. They told us today that at the start the training will be from four to five hours long. Tomorrow we just get to watch...and I imagine that they are a little wary of what my reaction will be...guess I will be reporting tomorrow night how the training went. I'm sure that I will be glad that the end of day one will be behind us! I'm hoping that Woody will start feeling better once his blood gets cleansed better than it has been. I don't know how long it might be for him to feel better. To keep my mind occupied with something other than dialysis, I cooked most of the afternoon...now...I have the mess to clean up! But I did get a good casserole from my efforts. Woody is all connected and his last PD treatment is underway. Tomorrow starts another chapter in Woody's ongoing health saga. I'm hoping he gets some good rest tonight...of course, he is ready for HD to get underway...unlike me! I prefer familiar, as, I guess most of us do! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!