On the First Day of Dialysis My True Love Gave to Me...

Dialysis day has arrived. I was nervous and anxious with no expectations except what I had heard over the years what the negatives were about dialysis. We met with my nurse Amber who is well versed and knowledgeable but the first visit was quite overwhelming. I was only there for a couple of hours including filling out paperwork and the actual cleaning of thy blood.

They had a couple dozen recliner type chairs with flat screen tv's mounted from the ceiling. I was given my own pair of headphones that worked with the tv but I opted for my Airpods from home. I learned pretty quick to do your own thing and mind your own business. Especially since the gentleman to my right always had CNN on and the lady on my left watched Fox News.

There was no pain in the process. The biggest negative was the amount of time required for me to be there. One thing that bothered me was that all home responsibilities now fell on my wife Ashley.

On average, it takes a person about two to three hours per treatment. There are many factors that go into play when determining how much treatment you need. When I first started my blood was not being cleaned to where it needed to be. I was on a 180 dialyzer and it was later determined to move me up to a 220. This increased the amount of blood that could be cleaned within a certain amount of time. The new dialyzer helped but I still was not where I needed to be. The next step? Increase my time from four hours to four and a half hours. It was later determined later on that to get my numbers where they needed to be I would have to be on the machine for about 7 hours which was not an option. I mean, they close at 9pm. Ha ha ha

Things continued to move forward and it was a breeze. A breeze until...

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