Even a good day is not without problems. :-/

Well, yesterday was dialysis day again.  This was my first time using the provided transportation to my session. The van didn't arrive until almost 11:30.  I had applied the EMLA at 9 am, so by the time the van arrived, I had started to worry that the cream would lose it's effectiveness by the time I got into the chair.  As it turns out, apparently the EMLA stays active as long as it's covered in the plastic wrap and then continues to work for about an hour after removing the wrap.  Whew!

When I arrived at the clinic and weighed in, I was still at the same weight as I was on Tuesday when I had my last failed attempt at dialyzing.  That's pretty awesome in that I hadn't dialyzed for a week and still only gained about 4 pounds.

The person from the Access Center was there and she got the needles in on the first try!

Getting ready to get stuck.  That iodine makes the bruising really stand out!  lol

Oh, and this was my arm before the iodine and so forth.  It's hard to see, but I'm purple all the way up to my hand.  Arm was still so sore I couldn't fully extend my arm as well.  I was NOT looking forward to dialysis.  

Got it on the first try for each needle!  Yay!  

There was a problem of course, because you know, I wouldn't be me if they could simply stick the needles in and have everything work perfectly.  bleh.  The arterial needle was no problem at all, but the venous needle, because the vein is so deep, kept setting off the alarm on my machine.  The nurses had to play around with it and try various ways of propping it up so that the pressure wouldn't be so high.

Also, because of the problems I've had, the nurses were using smaller needles and a slower pull rate.  My blood doesn't like that.  Remember, my blood likes to clot...  the slower they pull the blood, the more opportunity my blood has to clot.  Which is exactly what it did...

After about an hour and a half, I clotted off the machine.  Thankfully clotting off the machine doesn't pose a danger to me because the clots are not in my body nor do they have any way of reaching my body.  However, the machine gets gummed up and it kills the whole works.  

Since I still had about 2 hours to go, it was decided that they would just put a whole new set up on the machine and keep running me.

Here I am waiting to be hooked back up to the machine after they change out the works.  They don't have to pull the needles, they just clamp them off, flush them with saline and then rehook me to new lines.  If they had to restick me, I would have fought them I think...  

Here's a little video of my nurse rehooking me to the machine and what the kidney looks like as it fills with blood.  The abrupt ending was because the blood pressure cuff on my right arm started to inflate and when that happens, if my arm is bent, it hurts like hell.  So I cut the video off to straighten my arm quickly.  

Also, I found a new way to pass the time aside from reading the Kindle or watching TV.  :)  

My Daughter and I love Pokemon.  To that end, we both have 3DS units and Pokemon games.  I was unsure about trying to play with only the use of my right hand, but I gave it a shot and it works!  I don't think it would work as well on one of the earlier DS units that doesn't have the 'joystick' on the left there, but the 3DS makes it very easy to play Pokemon games one-handed.  Now, if only my clinic would get WEP WiFi.  :)  (I specify WEP because, while the 3DS works on any WiFi, the Pokemon games require open WEP connections in order to go online.  I'm pretty pissed with Nintendo right now...)

With about an hour left to go in my session, I began to realize I was having trouble breathing.  I didn't know what to think at first, so I didn't say anything.  After about 10 minutes though, I was really struggling, so I told my nurse and she immediately slapped oxygen on my and put some saline into my line.  Apparently my BP had dropped because they were pulling too much fluid at too fast a rate... or something?  I'm afraid I was a little too scared at that point to fully pay attention to what they were telling me.

After a fairly crazy time, and with about 20 minutes left to go in my session, I managed to clot off the machine again.  This time they just pulled me off and called it a day.  How friggin ridiculous!  

When all is said and done, they didn't get to pull as much fluid off as they wanted because of having to put so much saline back in due to clotting and so forth, but it was enough to make me feel better.

I waited an hour for the van to come get me and when I got home, Carolynn sat down in my bed with me and sat with me while I fell asleep.  

That was my eventful, uneventful day.

Tomorrow we try again, this time there won't be any specialist from the Access Center.  I may very well be screwed.  :(