Up in Arms...

 

Arm Ultra Sound and Vein Mapping Scheduled for October 18.       Joy.

Argh! This is frustrating...

 

In Wait for New Kidneys, Relying on Flawed System

We don't need no education...

Dialysis education was pretty much all that I've read, re-read, and read again over the past two years only this time there were a lot more gory pictures and lot's of shiny happy people telling you how great life on dialysis is.

Then they give you a fine choice of three different modes of dialysis.

I chose door number three which is the one that is chosen by the people who don't want to have boxes and boxes of  peritoneal supplies and a machine sitting around their bedroom and then have to hook themselves up to the machine that pumps their guts full of fluid as they "sleep" at night.

Instead, I will be one of the wussies that go to the renal center 3x a week to be hooked up to a machine for 3 - 4 hours.

After this totally uplifting experience, I am being scheduled for the next adventure called
vein mapping.

Fistula surgery scheduling will follow.

If you pray....please pray that the tx center calls me before all this has to go down.

Thanks.

About-face...

OK, so after everything I have written here for the past year and a half, this is going to seem a pretty extreme swing in the opposite direction...

After some considerable emotional urging from some people very close to me and a heartfelt plea from my daughter I've decided to give the process of dialysis another look.

Ugh.

 As much as the whole deal just wigs me out, I am going to try to adapt because, quite frankly, the fuse is burning and my options are really beginning to narrow pretty quickly now.

There's a good bit to getting up and actually beginning this treatment, and so I am scheduled for my first day of "Dialysis Education" (doesn't this sound like fun?) on Tuesday.

I'll keep you all posted.

All life is...really just a circle...

Final gift: After fatal accident, transplant candidate becomes donor

What's hotter than a late August day?

.....the heat I've been taking for not updating this blog!

Ok, so here goes.....

There have been no calls for quite a while now so nothing new to report there.
I did have a nephrologist appointment last week and the doctor again expressed his concern about my current numbers. My GFR had actually risen by 1 point to an 11. Woo Hoo!
But my BUN and creatinine have also risen and this is not good.
Dr. Schendel has pretty much realized the futility of talking dialysis with me.
This time, instead of trying to get me to have a fistula implanted in my arm, he said that soon I may want to consider having a catheter put into my chest for treatment.
Argh.

On this end.....I just keep on keeping on.
I'm betting the whole farm on the one call that I hope to get from Pinnacle soon.

Thanks for checking in here.
I'll keep you posted.

And again...

The organs went to the primary candidate at Geisinger, another transplant facility.

Once again I ask you to say a prayer for the recipient and for the donor's family.

Thanks.