Dialysis, Take Two…

So… now FRIDAY is the big day, since Wednesday was a bust. We arrived, and again were made to stand there waiting. When we got to the room, the blood vials they were planning to use for Henning fell to the floor when the nurse moved the table. She was going to use them anyway… so at that point, things got serious.

Henning had a very nice conversation with the doctor and the nurses. Once he felt confident things were going to proceed differently than on Wednesday, the fun began again.

However, even after three very experienced (and CLEAN) nurses tried four times, no dice. His fistula probably needs more time to mature. So no dialysis… again.

But even so, today’s experience as a whole, while just as unfruitful, was definitely better than Wednesday’s.

What comes next? Good question, and one we don’t have the answers to yet. Henning has another appointment on Monday morning, and we will hopefully know at that point where to go from here.

Dialysis, Take One…

So this past Wednesday was the big day. After years of declining kidney function, and months of feeling generally worse all the time, and since he is not a candidate for transplant, Henning made the decision to start dialysis. It was a big day, emotionally charged, as you might imagine.

The experience was not great, to put it mildly. We arrived, and were left standing by an unattended desk for several minutes. That was probably the best part of the evening. Henning was scheduled to start at 4:30 pm (16:30 for those of you not in the states) for three hours, first time around. It will likely be 4 hours, 3 times a week, once it gets going.

We had a crowded, dirty room, harried, indifferent nurses, and a severe lack of communication happening between staff and us. The other patients were catcalling and heckling both staff and each other, it was madness. Ok, it probably wasn’t quite that bad, but it certainly felt like it. I have a friend who says I described it to her like something from a SAW movie… so I have toned it down a bit from that.

The nurse WAS busy, though. And if not indifferent, certainly more concerned with whether or not to wear gloves than communicating effectively with Henning. As for me, well, anyone here in Denmark who has tried to communicate with me knows I am good at the ‘smile and nod’, but that’s about it.

The nurse was finally able to get one line in, but not both. So she opted to try with just the one. It worked… for 34 minutes.

Then the machine started sounding the alarm, the other patients began offering comments, and the doctor came in, only to tease the nurse about her failure (NOT exaggerating that one, sorry to say). In the wake of a general flurry of activity that was not productive in any measurable way, we were sent home.

Henning was still feeling crappy physically, but the emotional kick was harder to deal with. But he did not come home empty handed. He ended up with a fantastically spectacular bruise.

Try, try again…

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for stopping in. The first few posts are going to be about where things are right now. Henning has his own blog that he is tweaking, so this may be short lived. But for now, I figured it was more important to get information out there, even if the site isn’t perfect.

If you have a specific question, you can leave it in the replies, or you can email us. Since we have discovered most people have a lot of the same questions, I do suggest you reply in comments, and we can respond once. That is kind of the purpose of this thing, after all. However, if you have sensitive questions, or really private things (I can’t imagine anything like that right now) or if you are just that shy (and I really can’t imagine that either, from those of you I know personally) I will do my best to see those questions or concerns are taken care of in a timely manner. I make no promises, nor will I define “timely”. 😛

If you are curious about kidney disease, kidney function, dialysis, or just having a really boring couple of days and have several hours to kill, I recommend this site: http://bigdandme.wordpress.com/

The guy is a lifer, so he’s on the level without being too dramatic. His posts link to other blogs and sites and he is a wealth of information. Most of what I (we?) know came from either his site, or someplace linked from his site. He also answers emails in a (relatively) timely manner, which I truly appreciate, but doubt I can emulate.

In any case, thanks for reading, and keep in touch!