After what felt like a million fits and starts, home hemo is starting to work for us. :)
One of the last days we were down at Wellbound to dialyze and to continue learning, they called me into a room with another patient and her daughter. The woman has had her fistula for two years, and self cannulates. Her daughters are there as her back up. She filled me in on the fact that fistulas are just finicky. Even now, she'll have days where she has to use sharps. (Which wasn't what I -wanted- to hear, but WAS what I -needed- to hear.)
We had some struggley days upon returning home AGAIN, but the waters are so, so much smoother now. I no longer have to poke around for ten minutes in the buttonholes to hit the vein. I no longer have that super stressful feeling in my belly that I'm forgetting something important. I do keep the flip chart of set up out, but really only check it to double check myself. I love, LOVE that most of this is feeling more and more second nature.
We are finally able to get two blunts into him, and our runs are largely uneventful. What's even more exciting is that the few times we've had some bumps, they weren't terribly scary. I've lost a system (which is losing the cartridge and all the blood that's in it during a treatment.), I've forgotten to close a clamp and ruined a great pair of white capri pants with his blood, and I've decided to scrap a treatment for the day when his venous pressure just would NOT get under control no matter what I did. And all of those things were just okay. We are adjusting, and we are learning to make dialysis work FOR us.
Used to, when I began the set up of the machine, I would start the set up of my own stress. (He had his own stresses too. ) 'Will I get the needles in? Am I setting this machine up all for naught? Are we going to have to drive back and forth to Wellbound more because we aren't doing it right? Am I going to root around so long he suffers lots of pain?" I don't really have that anymore. I can confidently set the machine up, prepare my little rolling table with all the things I need to cannulate him, and move through this process a TON more comfortably. And for me, that's hugely important.
Today, we drew his labs at home for the first time. I called down to get a refresher because I've not had much practice with it, but we did indeed get his labs drawn, including his transplant bloodwork, and with our handy dandy centrifuge, it's all spun and ready to go to the lab. I'm super excited because next week is our clinic. And usually, you get your blood drawn AT clinic, so you are actually working off labs that are from the prior month. I told myself that now that we control when they are drawn, I will draw them in time to have NEW, FRESH, up to date labs each clinic.
And so, onward!
