OT / Dialysis

Hiya mate (ive seen the other comments on the thread and thankfully everything is now majorly different to what it was..

However for anyone else in the situation or if you find youself stuck again..

Just done a stint of 3 years on dialysis. Some patients early thirties like myself.. some very elderly... with the longest guy id met doing it around 30 years (he was untransplantable so had to have it for the reat of his life or it wouldnt have been that long)

So before dialysis.. they will want to make a fistula as a means of access to the blood system. This is usually in the arm and is the joining of the main artery and vein to make a strong connection that can withstand the regular needling.
A fistula can take 6 weeks to mature and harden to be ready for use.
If dialysis is needed sooner than this, they will use a tunnelled access line into the neck. This is what i had (and ill tell you why later) this line going into the shoulder, just below where the collorbone is most visible is probably the easiest way to describe it, and under the skin across to the neck into the juggular, it then passes down along that blood vessel to sit in the right hand side of the heart.

The reason i wanted this is because i always viewed dialysis as a short spell of my life, where, when i got a tranplant the line can come out and i fully return to normality. A fistula is perminant and can be sometimes unsightly after quite a few years. (They can be really bumpy and look like a golf ball in the arm which i wanted to avoid) the downside is, having a line doesnt provide as good a dialysis and can be more risky due to infection.

The dialysis itself..
I started out at petermoorhead unit at northern general, then when covid became a thing i moved across to barnsleys unit, which is still run by the northern general, they just rent a building from bdgh.
I dialysed monday, wednesday friday 4 til around half 7. They are 3 and half hour sessions but obviously if the fistula carrys on bleeding when your disconnected you cant leave until it stops.. or if staff are busy you might not always get on straight away.

10.5 hours a week is seen a optimum to sufficiently clear harmful build up of things like urea and potassium. Which without will lead to heart failure.

The line is connected like a flow and return ona heating system. With 2 neddles used in the same fashion for the fistula. One side is the leg going to the machine. With the other the cleaned blood coming back.. the process itself is completely painless.. it is just very tying with regards the timescales. I work 8/4 monday to friday. So tended to leave work a little early to try and get there on time.
For what its worth, my employer has been brilliant and cannoy speak highly enough of how supportive they have been, but thats a seperate thread entirely.

After dialysis i was always very tired so usually drove home, had some tea and went to bed.. to feel fine the following morning

This biggest benefit for me was that i maintained a small amount of kidney function throughout so never went on a fluid restriction. The dialysis takes away the build up of fluid as well as the toxins in most patients, how my kidney carried on removing the fluid, just didnt take any of the harmful build up. So most patients will be on a restriction of 1 to 1.5 litres of fluid intake a day.. drinking more than this can mean they unable to remove the full excess fluid.. leading to tighter restrictions.

I continued to try my best to live a normal life, work 37 hours a week, maintained my season ticket and kept going to home games.. my social life took a hit, but nothing major.

So i would advise it is perfectly reasonable under most circumstances to live a relatively normal life while still having dialysis... it does effect different people differently though so thats not guranteed.

If you need to ask anything else please do such as foods or anythinv, more than happy to respond on here or to direct messages.

Thank you all for the support shown in the other thread.. it has been greatly appreciated... probably more than you will ever know.

Thank you

Kiefer

 

Thank you for sharing your story . We all have problems in our life but it pales into insignificance compared to yours. Good luck .

 

Cheers mate.. to be fair, as i said above, i approached it with a mentality of "its hopefully only a temporary period of my life, that will be over should i be lucky enough to get a transplant" average wait time for a kidney is around 5 years... ive waited 3, and thing didnt go to plan initially but looking up now..
Covid was a massive scare as end stage renal failure patients were in the highest vunerability catagory.. managed to avoid it throughout by following the rules and using extra common sense though...
I also have looked at it as theres always someone worse off..
I have still been able to walk, talk and other than a rather full calender with dialysis, largely do as i please.. there are plenty of.l people in this world in a far worse state than me.. and plenty of people who in a similar situation as me have struggled massively..
Hopefully the kidney (mentioned in the how you doing thread) will fully take hold over the coming days and weeks and ill return to relatively full normality, albeit with oodles of anti rejection/immunosuppressing drugs.

I cant actually state how gutted i am that i am unable to take part in the football at oakwell this week, shoot for your seat or whatever it is. i would have loved to have kicked a ball on the turf.. but anyway..

Thank you for your message mate.