My dialysis center rotated techs this week so there are two different techs in my area. I know all of them since they rotate every three months but since the person assigned to my chair has not seen my fistula before, she wanted to try and stick me. Also, they don’t even bring out supplies for hooking up the chest catheter; it’s all stuff for the fistula.
She tried Tuesday and was not successful so she called over the tech that has been sticking me for the past few weeks. Likewise, she was unable to hit the vein yesterday so she call the other tech to help again. However, since she made several attempts already, when the other tech finally hit the vein, my arm was already pretty sore. He also had some problems with the arterial needle so my arm was hurting pretty noticeably for the entire four hours.
At the end of the session, when the tech pulled out the needles, the arterial wound would not stop bleeding. I was applying pressure with a gauze pad but blood kept flowing out of the hole and made a mess. I’ve seen this happen to other patients but to experience it was weird. We finally managed to stopped the bleeding and I sat for 20 minutes applying pressure to the needle sites.
Life with chronic diseases 