To follow up on my last post that I made just before Christmas, I did end up getting that new catheter only two days prior to Santa’s arrival, and actually immediately followed up with my first session at the dialysis clinic to put my new tube straight to my heart to use!
It was scary, although the day went by so fast I didn’t have a whole lot of time to be scared.
…except when I was laying conscious in the operating room because they didn’t put me under like I thought they would…
…and the four hours I had to listen to beeping the entire time, most of which was other people’s dialysis machines peeping although some was definitely mine, too…
Needless to say, I’ve learned a lot about hemodialysis over the last handful of weeks, things like how problematic clotting can be and not necessarily just in me, but also inside the machine itself; understanding low blood pressure, which happens as a result of removing fluid but being someone with traditionally high blood pressure, hasn’t been something that I’ve really had to think about; and of course, figuring out and knowing my limits with treatment.
This last one was never really a problem with PD dialysis, and honestly hemo overall went pretty good for my first several weeks. I would often feel tired after treatments, but better the next day and in general my energy levels have been worlds different, which has been a great improvement!
My last two sessions, on the other hand, were a bit challenging because each one saw my blood pressure dropping dangerously low – the first time, I felt dizzy and saw rings in my vision until we stopped and they gave me some oxygen; the second time, I felt even dizzier and apparently I blacked out for a minute, and as I was recovering, at one point I was slurring my words … which was incredibly weird because I knew it was happening but couldn’t do anything to stop it…
The clinic staff was really good and immediately jumped into action, between stopping the machine from pulling my fluid and even giving me some back, putting me on oxygen and encouraging me to drink water, and checking in with me every couple of minutes to verify whether I felt like my symptoms were getting better or worse. They wouldn’t let me leave until my blood pressure had normalized and my symptoms had subsided, and encouraged me to call my wife to talk to on the ride home because I’ve been driving myself recently.
Those two sessions were definitely a reminder of how serious this is, considering that the worst I ever felt with PD was a general degradation of my treatments not filtering out as much as they should.
I guess it makes sense because while the machine can be more effective, there’s also additional risk from the process, too. I can only hope that it won’t drag on too long, as I’m only one doctor’s appointment away from my next surgery now, and hopefully once I recover from that, it’ll be time for my kidney transplant.
If it doesn’t work out that way, we might switch to me doing hemo at home, which has a long learning curve but is supposed to be a little bit gentler than doing it at the clinic. So we’ll see.
In the meantime, I’m tolerating it the best that I can. I’m surrounded by people who are older and clearly suffering more than I am, so I’m grateful to still have my wits about me for the most part during my treatments. I’ve even been able to use the dedicated 12 hours a week to make some new creative progress, so that’s helped my mood a bit! Oddly enough, I’ve also felt my depression kicking up more around unrelated things that I don’t want to elaborate on here, so that’s a new challenge but I’m doing my best to push through it.
There’s a lot more to say, including the impact my dialysis has had on the kids which is eye-opening, but maybe I’ll get into that more at a later date.
For now, tomorrow’s session begins week #5 and we’re going to cut down the volume so as to hopefully not make me pass out! Every day is an adventure, but it certainly beats the alternative…