This is hard...

I meant to get back to this much sooner than now, but it has been a rough couple of weeks.  Sorry about that.

My second time going to dialysis was fairly horrible.  Again I had to go to the hospital for my treatment as they had still not set me up at my local clinic.  Having already done this once, and knowing that the nurses had some problems sticking my fistula because it was new I had a feeling things wouldn't be exactly simple.  I had no idea just how bad it would get though...

On my second day, all my nurses were different than the first time, so none of them were familiar with my arm.  My first nurse tried sticking me and, while the arterial needle went in fairly easily (remember that arterial blood is the dirty blood that is flowing away from your heart, and it is also in the larger of the 2 blood 'highways'), by the time he had tried the venous line, I had clotted off the arterial line.

Oh yeah, that's another problem that I have.  My blood clots almost immediately.  While that is a good thing in just about every way possible, it is a really bad thing for dialysis.  Well, ok, more accurately, it is a bad thing for going onboard with dialysis.  Coming off the machine it is awesome.  I'll get to that in a bit...

Anyway, so both needles had to be removed and another nurse called in to try to get the needles in.  All of this is painful by the way.  I'm not going to lie to you or sugar coat it.  These are 16 gauge needles, and while they are small in terms of dialysis, they are NOT small in terms of reality.  lol  I did a lot of reading and research over the years regarding my disease and everything that goes with it.  Therefore, when the time came, I knew enough to ask them to numb the injection sites first.  NOTE: They will generally NOT offer to do this for you.  YOU NEED TO ASK FOR THE NUMBING MEDICINE.  As time goes on and your fistula becomes more mature, it gets easier (so they tell me), but starting out, don't be afraid to be a complete wimp!  Ask for numbing medicine each and every time they stick you.

It took over an hour to get the needles in this time.  In the end I was sobbing uncontrollably, my arm was starting to swell, I had 3 or 4 nurses all focused on just me and my stupid arm, and everyone felt horrible.  Finally they got me onboard though and my treatment began.  Everything went fairly well after the initial trauma and my nurse Joe was a great guy who really took time to explain things to me and share his own stories.  Joe, as it turns out, is a Vietnam Vet, Author, and has a PhD in BioChemistry.  He actually built one of the labs there at the hospital, and has developed some sort of life saving piece of equipment for our troops in the field.  Then the money ran out.  The hospital decided to drop Joe's funding for his lab and they downsized his position entirely so he took a job as a dialysis nurse.  Joe is also a 7 year survivor of colon cancer.  Oh, and he is a musician who actually had a song in the top 25 decades ago.  :)  Needless to say, he really helped the time go by quickly.

When I had less than 30 minutes to go in my treatment however, the alarms on my machine started going a little nuts.  Now, alarms are very common while you're onboard.  There are alarms for everything.  An alarm sounds before the blood pressure cuff takes your pressure, alarms for when the various chemicals need to be changed, alarms if your blood flow is too slow or too fast, etc etc etc...  It can be a very noisy, beeping, chaotic place in the dialysis unit.  In my case, my alarm kept going off because, as Joe discovered, I had clotted off the machine.  Remember, I clot really easily...  They give you Heparin in your line until about the last hour of dialysis.  The Heparin helps to keep you from clotting off, but they stop it an hour or so before taking you off so that once they pull the needles you will clot off.  I my case, 30 minutes after they stopped the Heparin drip, my blood said, "ENOUGH!"

On the one hand it was awesome because I got to come off the machine a good 20 minutes sooner than I was supposed to, but on the other hand, it was a bad thing because I came off the machine 20 minutes sooner than I was supposed to...  I need to stay onboard to get my blood clean, but I hate being onboard.  lol  Catch 22.

Joe pulled the needles and I literally didn't even have a single drop of blood on the bandage.  THAT is not commonplace.  You should expect to bleed.  You should expect to have to hold pressure on your arm for a good 5 to 10 minutes after the needles are removed.  In most every other person out there, bleeding can be a real problem.  Remember that these needles are going directly into your artery and a huge vein.  In fact, for most people, they expect that if you don't immediately apply pressure, you will spurt blood across the room in time with the beating of your heart...  makes sense if you think about it.  (Also kind of gross if you think too long about it.)

This 2nd time had been on a Friday (A week ago yesterday actually), and I had to come back the following morning to run again.  At this point we were still trying to find my dry weight and get rid of the over 25 pounds of extra fluid that had built up in my body, so running me 2 days in a row is no big deal.

I came back in the next morning and Joe was on duty again!  Yay for small blessings!  Joe told me immediately that he wasn't even going to try to stick me that day.  Instead, he actually called another nurse who was working in ICU to come down specifically to stick my arm.  This guy took a long time to really examine my arm and listen and feel around before sticking me.  He got the needles in on the first try and the rest of that session was fairly uneventful.  That is until....

CRAMPING!!!

Holy crap!  I had read that when they get to your dry weight, (the weight you are without any excess fluid at all in your system) that you would experience cramping, nausea, and other assorted horrors.  They tell you that, but nothing, and I mean nothing, actually prepares you for it.

When I got to about 30 minutes left in my 3rd treatment, my left foot started to cramp up.  I'm not stranger to foot cramps, but generally I get them when my feet are cold.  This time my feet were toasty warm, but the feeling was unmistakable.  I tried stretching and moving, the things I normally do when I get my foot cramps, but nothing worked.  I started to say something to Joe, and then, without any sort of warning at all, my entire left leg seized up.  It was excruciating!  Think about the worse charlie horse you've ever had... ok, now multiply that my 10 or more.  Before I could recover enough to start to form words, my right foot, quickly followed by my right leg also began cramping.

I was literally lying there in the bed writhing in pain and even though I tried to be brave, the pain won out and I became that person that you never want to be... the one moaning in pain and begging for them to do something to make it stop.

Joe came over and with the push of a few buttons, stopped pulling fluid and started putting some saline back in.  The cramping subsided within 3 minutes of him doing that.  He also said, "Looks like we found your dry weight".  lol  Thanks Joe.  I needed you to tell me that.  =P

I came off the machine and went home, none the worse for wear.

My next experience was different...  and it requires it's own entry.