Life with CKD: Dialysis (part 1)

Want to know what dialysis looks like for me every day?  Well I don’t go to a center.  It all happens at home, at night, every night.

First of all this is what part of my dialysis room looks like.

Those boxes contain some of my dialysis solution and other supplies.  In the closet are more supplies including connectors, tubes, sterile cotton swabs, and disinfecting solution.

I start by grabbing several bags of dialysate (dialysis solution) around dinnertime, a few hours before I start my overnight dialysis session.

I warm up one bag with an electric heating pad. It takes several hours to get it to body temperature.  This will be the first bag of solution that will go into my body so I want it comfortable.

Around 9pm, I wash my hands thoroughly with anti-bacterial soap.  I shut the faucet with my elbows and dry my hands with paper towels.  Got to stay germ-free!

I turn on the dialysis machine, making sure my flash drive containing my prescription is inserted in the back.  The machine is called a cycler because it cycles dialysis solution into and out of my body throughout the night.

I check each bag of dialysis solution to confirm clarity, volume, expiration date and strength.  If my blood pressure is too high, I use a higher strength solution.  Higher strength dialysis solution contains more dextrose (sugar) which draws out even more fluid from my body, which in turn, should lower my blood pressure.

I take out the “cassette” which holds the tubes that regulate the solution…

… and insert it into the cycler.

Then I connect the tubes to the bags of solution.  I go through about three bags of solution each night.

I connect the “drain” tube to an extension tube…

… which I extend to the toilet in the bathroom where the used fluid will empty.
I put on my face mask and wash my hands again.

    

I continue to navigate the cycler through the setup, selecting the various options on the screen.

I sterilize the catheter connectors with Alcavis, a high level disinfectant.

With my egg timer, I make sure to scrub that connector thoroughly for two minutes.

Then I connect the catheter to the machine, unclamp the tubes, start the first drain, check the drain to make sure it’s clear of infection. Finally, after this 20-30 setup process, I crawl into bed.  (I’d show you a picture of me sleeping, but that would be weird.)

The overnight process runs for about nine hours. Sometimes I’ll sit in bed and read or work on my laptop before I go to sleep.  Since I’m tethered to my machine at that point, my boys know to come if I need anything.  (“Tay!  I forgot my pills!  Can you get them for me please?”)

In the morning, after my machine has completed the full night session, I disconnect my catheter.  Then I take my blood pressure and temperature, weigh myself, then log the data for my dialysis nurse.  I gather and discard all the used tubes and bags.

So that’s night-time dialysis for me.  Next post, I’ll share about daytime dialysis, and why I need that too.

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On the kidney front, I’m still waiting for that perfect kidney out there to find its way to me.  🙂