Life with CKD: Dialysis (part 2)

My last post showed what dialysis at night was like for me.   Last month my nephrologist wanted me to add another dialysis exchange during the day.  My toxin levels were getting too high that the night-time session alone was not enough therapy.

So now I find an hour every day during my waking hours to dialyze manually (with a bag of solution hanging from a pole rather than using the machine.)  Sometimes I’m out and about so I’ll dialyze in the car, or wherever I happen to be.  Once I figured out I can dialyze anywhere, I make it work.  As long as I can hang the bag up high and let gravity fill my  abdominal area with solution,  I can have a dialysis session.  There’s always supplies in the car.  Here I’m dialyzing at church.

Marty and I had helped serve dinner to our middle schoolers on Movie Night recently.  After we set them up with popcorn, I retreated to a quiet room to dialyze for 45 minutes.

On some stormy days I also choose to dialyze manually throughout the day because you never know when a power outage will shut down my machine at night.  A storm a few months ago did indeed leave us with no power during the night.

I don’t like daytime dialysis because it makes me feel very pregnant and uncomfortable.  Everyone tells me how tiny I am, and two liters of fluid in me is a lot!  Nighttime sessions are more comfortable because I’m on my back and mostly sleeping anyway.

Several hours after each session, I drain the fluid.  Then I measure and record the amount drained.

Tracking the amount drained helps my dialysis center track how much excess fluid and toxins are drawn from my body.

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So that’s dialysis for me.  All of it sounds like a huge hassle but it’s mostly pain-free (minimal cramping), and I prefer that method over going to a dialysis center to do hemodialysis three times a week. That’s where you sit in a chair for four to five hours each time while blood is pumped out of your body,  filtered through a machine, then back into your veins.  With my form of treatment (called peritoneal dialysis) my days are freed up for the most part, and since I dialyze everyday, toxins never build up too high so I generally feel normal.