Fistula Update 8/8/2020

Everyday is an adventure at dialysis-land. I found out today that Tuesdays and Saturdays are busier than Thursdays because some patients only come twice a week for dialysis. When I started, I was only on dialysis twice a week for three hours per session. Over time, this has become three times a week for four hours per session. That an increase of 100%.

Since it was busy, the nurse connected me via the chest catheter first so I get all my dialysis time in. Later, after I had fallen asleep, she came and woke me up to try and stick me with the needles. She used short 17-gauge needles again even though the throughput is less. The venous needle went in okay after some digging around but the arterial one wasn’t cooperating.. After a few tries, she gave up and another tech came to try. He stuck me a bit lower in the arm and was finally able to get good position. I think it was about 7:00 am by this time so only a bit less than three hours remain.

I was tired again so I slept some more. The nurse came by and woke me up at ~8:30 am because she wanted to flush and tape up my catheter. Then she changed her mind and decided to wait until the end of the session. Great, I got woken up for nothing. Anyway, disconnecting went mostly okay. The venous needle site bled through the first gauze bandage so they had to change me while I was applying pressure to stop the bleeding. I just took off all the gauze and the hole from the missed attempt is still bleeding after ~7 hours. Ugh. I hate this fistula. Almost makes me want to ask them to keep using the chest catheter regardless of the infection risk.

Also, the second tech that stuck me is a big fan of the company I work at. Last year, I bought for him a lot of logo’ed clothing with my employee discount. He kept asking about our stock. We’re a private company so the stock is not listed on any stock market. He said to give him a day’s notice if we ever go public. He wants in on the IPO shares. Sure, so does millions of other investors. Like I have enough clout to get additional shares in an IPO. Most of the time it’s like getting free money.