Today was the “dialysis” day of 2021 and there was a personnel change. In the past, the dialysis techs would rotate to a different pod/unit every three months. They are still rotating but the schedule seems more random now. Anyway, my “new” tech is a younger guy that I’ve spoken to a lot before, but this is the first time he’s stuck me with dialysis needles. The first attempt was unsuccessful and very painful; he ended up calling over another tech and she was able to place the needles more accurately. It was fine but my arm did hurt for about 30 minutes at the beginning of the session. It’s about 1:30 pm now and it’s hurting again at home.
I also spoke to my nephrologist. She was there last Tuesday but had to run off before talking to me. I convinced her to raise my dry weight to 79.0 kg since my blood pressure is crashing (low) each session now. Today, I sat up near the end and it dropped to 85/58. I felt really sick and thought I was going to pass out. They stopped the fluid removal and pumped back about 250 mL of saline to try and stabilize my blood pressure. Hopefully the higher weight limit will mitigate the constant hypotension.
My nephrologist also said that it’s probably better to wait a bit on the transplant, if I get approved. She also does rounds in the main St. Joseph Hospital and she said the place is a zoo. People are waiting hours and days to get into the ER since there are no open beds in the ER nor the main hospital. She mentioned she saw OB doctors doing ER triage, which is not really ideal. Personally, she said five of her patients died from COVID this weekend; she has patients at various hospitals and facilities. The youngest was a otherwise healthy 27 year old. The dialysis nutrition also stopped by to chat and said they’re losing about a patient a day at the hospital due to COVID. I don’t know who still thinks this is all some kind of fake news but their attitude is killing people.
Life with chronic diseases 