Woody's dialysis treatment went fairly well today. I got started with set up well before the nurse arrived, but I still was only at the point of finishing up the dressing on his access site. I had had several warnings during the set up. I did manage to figure out what to do...but it included repriming so that added time onto the setup. I got a couple of others, too...one had us do one of the routine maintenance jobs after Woody was finished. These warnings weren't scary since they all happened pre hooking him up for his treatment. The alarms that I dread are the ones that might happen during his treatment. The "red alarms" automatically shut the pump off and you just have a few minutes to figure out what to do as his blood could start clotting! At the end of each treatment you can see how well his blood has been cleaned and how much clotting there has been. Today, he had more clotting than usual. There is a possibility that the clotting was a factor of him not getting heparin yesterday because we thought he was going to have the procedure to remove the PD catheter. If the filter shows clotting again tomorrow, we will add more heparin at his next dialysis treatment. Lots to figure out! The nurse plans to come to the house through next Wednesday. We will then take one of our days off from dialysis on Thursday...the day he is to have his PD catheter procedure at the hospital. We've also had another appointment thrown in...the one to talk to the vascular surgeon about placing graft. That appointment is Tuesday afternoon in Murfreesboro. Hopefully we can be finished with dialysis early enough to get to that appointment...30 minites early! This is the place that kept us waiting so long at several different times when he got his hemodialysis catheter placed and had his veins mapped. I had understood that we would have a different doctor, but I believe that this appointment is with the same doctor. I'm not totally sure because he never introduced himself to us that day...Oh, well, we won't quibble...it needs to be done and as Woody said, he has had to wait before so can wait again! He's not too sure about arriving early as they wish us to do! Early will just mean more waiting time! Anyway, the appointments are stacking up! Tomorrow is TN Oncology day...his day with them for labs, see the doctor, and have a Keytruda infusion. We will probably just be finishing up with dialysis...maybe we can be finished a little earlier, if I can get through setup with less problems in the morning. Time will tell! Woody slept the best last night that he has in a very long time. Hopefully that is due to his blood being cleansed better. I believe that he actually slept through from when he fell asleep last night to when he awoke this morning...around 5:45...I was ready to make his breakfast when he woke up. Then I got started with the dialysis set up by 6:10am and was still only to the point just before getting him connected by 8:30 when the nurse arrived. I know that given time it will get shorter...but for the moment...Last night we experienced a momentary power failure...which made part of the machine shut off and took me a bit to get the one part of the machine that holds the dialysate to get turned back on...again, I did figure out what I was supposed to do...thanks to the books. That machine is running all the time as it has to run to keep the dialysate warm...or Woody would be freezing during his treatment. These are just a few of the things that have caused us a problem so far! But at least I was able to use the books that I have here to solve the problems. There is one warning that we get fairly frequently, that if we get it again tomorrow after trouble shooting it today, then we are going to call the tech support to see if there is a problem with our machine. Oh, I also learned how to do two of the maintenance jobs that I have to perform periodically. Our centrifuge has not arrived yet. It's just fun and games around here! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!
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