Something a little scary but hopeful has happened. On Monday, the dialysis clinic asked James to come in an hour earlier today and for me to come with him, so they could talk with us about the possibility of home dialysis. It is apparently has many advantages: easier on his heart and happens while he is asleep. It is done via the peritoneum and would also mean we could travel (not that we can actually afford to now) without having to find a dialysis clinic and spend four hours there. There is also a longer life expectancy. We would both have to take classes and be able to store supplies.

James actually got an earlier seat today, so I didn't have to be there until four (which was nice because I was under the weather). There are a lot of steps to this. First Kaiser and Dr. Kongara would have to sign off on it. Then James would have to have surgery—and probably be in the hospital five or six days because of the Brilinta—to insert the access point (it looks like it goes through your navel) and heal, and in the meantime he would continue to have thrice-weekly dialysis during the hospital stay and the healing process. Only then would we have the training (eight four-hour classes) and then the dialysis would be done manually for a few days before starting on the type that happens when he is asleep, just to make sure the catheter and the machine was working properly.

It does sound a bit daunting, but if it's better for James we must consider it. The biggest problem will be the supplies. The counselor we talked to today said we would have to have a five by seven space, which is the size of a small closet. We have no free closets, even if I could jettison more junk. It's possible we can clean up the additional pantry items downstairs to make some space in the downstairs hall (which will make it very narrow), but I'm not sure it will all fit down there. In any case, it's going to be a ton of work making this work out. 

Labels: illness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:22:00 PM

Comments:

Wow, lots to think and pray about. Is there a way to contact people who are having dialysis done at home, to get some personal-experience input?

# posted by  Karen the writer : 9:39:00 AM

 

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