I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: General Discussion => Topic started by: livecam on August 11, 2006, 05:08:58 PM
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I just hated being on dialysis and all of the restrictions and was longing to get back to doing what I wanted. I thought would it be possible to go to Europe and get treatment there? After looking into everything it turned out that arranging dialysis in Germany would be no problem. I would have to pay for the treatments up front after which my HMO would reimburse me for those costs. So...dialysis at my home unit on Friday evening. Saturday morning we fly LAX to Charles DeGaulle Paris. Our destination was a little town on the Austrian border in southern Bavaria. The plan was to go from Paris to Fussen in one day (Sunday) and be on dialysis at the unit there by noon on Monday. We get to Paris early Sunday morning, pick up the rental car, and start driving across France to Germany. Just before we got to the border the car needed gas so we stopped and took care of that. We get back on the freeway and after a couple of minutes the car starts to die...I'm looking for the the first exit and find one...we barely make it into the little town just inside Germany and park the car as the engine is completely quitting. So...here we are in this little town in Germany on a Sunday afternoon dead tired and with a dead car and not many options, what do we do now? After poking around for a few minutes I discovered low and behold that I had just filled a diesel car with gasoline...whoops! No one had mentioned that the thing was diesel and there were no warning signs on the car to indicate that it was but oh no, we had to get out of there! My family stayed with the car while I went out for a walk to see if I could find a service station of some sort. Luckily I ran into a couple who spoke enough English that they were able to tell me which direction to walk to find a gas station. Well I finally made it to the place and they were able to call someone who was able to go to the car with me and pump the tank. After 3 1/2 - 4 hours of fun we were finally back on the road. We weren't gonna make it to Bavaria that night so we found a hotel in Stuttgart and got some well deserved sleep. When we got back on the autobahn Monday morning we still had about 300 miles to make to get to Fussen and a waiting dialysis machine. I drove like a bat out of .... that morning and ended up getting there only about 10 minutes late. This experience added a whole new dimension to the term "white knuckle driving". So...if you ever attempt something like this yourself...know whether you're driving a diesel or gasoline powered vehicle.
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Quite an adventure :o. Glad you made it to the dialysis unit. Did you have a good time in Germany?
Excuse me for asking, but how much did you pay per session for dialysis in Germany?