A Little Soon to Tell

This past Wednesday was my first dialysis treatment and surprisingly it was all I expected. A. The got the needles in my arm and hooked me up to the machinery, it was uncomfortable but not terribly painful. I was supposed to run for about 3 hours but at 1 1/2 hours something went haywire and the dialysis stopped working. They decided to remove the needles and start over. The new techs couldn’t insert the needles into my fistula and poked and jabbed at my arm for about 1 1/2 hours. It was excruciating. Finally, they decided I should go to the emergency room. When I asked what they would do at the emergency room, the nurse told me they would fix my fistula because it was “bad”. Now even I am smart enough to know they couldn’t fix my fistula, when the dialysis center wanted was for them to insert a catheter into my neck to proceed with the dialysis, When they finally reached my doctor she said do not go to the emergency room and that she would talk to the vascular surgeon and call me in the morning.

It was determined that i would go back on Friday for another try. Needless to say i was retry worked up about this. My arm was so sore and I felt physically and emotionally drained. I did go back on Friday and it was decided (my doctors was there) that my fistula was too deep and it would need another surgery to repair. I’m tentatively scheduled for that surgery on Wednesday (waiting to hear Monday for sure) and then it was take 2 - 3 weeks for it to heal enough to be used, hopefully my kidneys can hold out for those 3 - 4 weeks, so that I do not have to have a catheter placed.

Some days it feels as though nothing goes right. I had the fistula put in almost a year ago to be ready for this and now that I’m ready, it appears my body is not.