Rough Night on Machine.

[Fabkiwi06]

Last night was hands down the worst night of dialysis I've ever had. Got everything set up normally, like I always do. Hooked up, went to bed, and was awoken at around 4am by the alarm. Common enough. This time it was a orange bar sensor reading error. Cleared it away like it said. 3 minutes later I got it again. Then again. Then again...

So, I called the Freesinius help line, like you're supposed to do when your machine behaves badly in the middle of the night. Went through the help menu to speak with someone and was put on hold for the next available agent. And waited... and waited... and waited...

After about 40 minutes I gave up and figured I'd just call again in the morning and suck it up with the alarms. All in all I think I had about 20 total last night. It was rough. I was in need of two coffee's before I could fully open my eyes this morning. Ended up taking a looooong nap today. Called my clinic and they said it sounded like a cassette issue (ehhh... I kinda don't think so) and that if it does it again tonight, they'll call and get the machine serviced.

Hooked up now and so far so good. But, it didn't kick in until almost towards the end last night, so fingers crossed!

[kickingandscreaming]

I feel your pain.   I had a night about a week ago-- after a whole series of bad nights.  This one started going off the rails at 3am with a blood curdling alarm.  In my stupor, I tried everything and nothing stopped it.  Finally had to unplug the whole machine and it still didn't stop screaming at me.  I kept calling Baxter and my phone kept getting disconnected .  Finally on my 6 attempt, I got through.  And the nice lady on the other end said "That's not our machine alarming."  And I said, but that's the only machine I have.  And she said, that sounds like your fire alarm going off.  Then, of course, it hit me.  So at 3ish in the a.m. I was trying to reach a step stool-- hooked up as I was to miles of tubing.  Finally found one I could reach and climbed up and struggled to diconnect the damn thing.  So I now still have a non-working fire alarm that I have no idea how to hook back up.

Needless to say, that night was a total bust.  Since I had already unplugged my cycler, I couldn't just resume my program.  So I had to fing a manual bag that I could reach so I could drain out, and the rest of my program was aborted. Nights that will live on in infamy!

[Charlie B53]

K&S,  I am so sorry that I have such a sick sense of humor, but if that had happened to me aferwards I would have been laughing at myself.  So Please don't think I am laughing at  you personnally, it is the circumstances of the situation.

Many times I have been awakened by a ''Beep', bothered bby not being able to figure out what it was.  And it would repeat only at a long interval so it was very difficult to pinpoint just where it was coming from in the house.  Suffice to say it was a low battery in a smoke alarm.   Another one of those   D'oh!  moments that happen when woken from a sound sleep.    We cannot be expected to think clearly.


Some months ago I posted about learning the color code on our Cycler hoses because of an early morning alarm, the Ico bag was empty yet the second bag still looked full.  I had called Baxter and learned that I had connected the hoses wrong.  Their position in the caddy was reversed.  I had gotten into the 'habit' of just connecting as they were, not even looking at the colors of the clamps. (Wrong).   Evidently the lesson didn't sink in well enough as I've become complacent and it happened again.   Qwap!    I hung another bag of Ico and went back to bed.

It is way too easy to make a mistake when we operate on autopilot.   Thinking I've done this at least a thousand times already, what's to go wrong?     D'oh!   I need to double check, verify the color code before hitting the start button.

[Simon Dog]

If you lose confidence in your machine, ask for a new one.   Except for the Baby-K hemo machine, Fresenius does not do in-home service - they just have a new machine delivered and pick up or call tag the old one.

[kickingandscreaming]

It's not my machine.  It's my brain at 3am that I have no confidence in.

[Charlie B53]

It's not my machine.  It's my brain at 3am that I have no confidence in.

You're in good company.  I know I don't function well in the wee hours when I should be sound asleep.  Not many can when woken up to a strange alarm sounding off.   Especially when it isn't one of our 'usual' alarms. We have trouble recognizing the different tone.   Our dog just looks at me like he's wondering when I'm going to finally get up and turn off the noise.

[kickingandscreaming]

If only we were as smart as dogs.

[Simon Dog]

If only we were as smart as dogs.

Or as nice as dogs.   My wife likes the dog better than she likes me.   I do not blame her.  I would too.

But, remember, dog's don't understand redistributionist philosophy and the big dogs won't start taking food from other big dogs to give to the small dogs, but rather, will eat what they can get.  I guess that makes dogs Republicans.

[kickingandscreaming]

SD- Dogs are a partisan-free zone. I'm sure I would like your dog more than I like you, too.

BTW, my dog eats only what she needs and leaves the rest.  So if there were a worthy other dog around, she would redistribute her excess.

[Michael Murphy]

I spent 40 years as a system programmer for large companies.  I was used to 3:00 AM call outs for systems down.  It got to the point I could get up fire up my laptop, fix the problem and go back to bed.  The only problem is  sometimes I could not remember what I did.  Fixed that by logging my sessions,  but it epwas strange to tell people I had no idea what I dis but I could find out from the logs.  The fun ones were when it was really bad and I had to go in.

[Simon Dog]

SD- Dogs are a partisan-free zone. I'm sure I would like your dog more than I like you, too.

I accept the compliment on behalf of my dogs (both of them).

And, I am pretty sure you are right.

[kickingandscreaming]

I accept the compliment on behalf of my dogs (both of them). And, I am pretty sure you are right.

I'm sure you're much nicer-- especially when you're with your dogs-- as they tend to bring out the best and most heartfelt in us. 

[Simon Dog]

I hope to someday be as good a person as my dog thinks I am.

[Fabkiwi06]

It's always 3am that machines and alarms decide to kick off. My dialysis machine will work like a charm from the moment I hook up at 10p until about 2:30 or 3 and then decide sleep is for the weak.

Did finally contact tech support and got to "fix" it by unplugging it and plugging it back in. Why does that always work? At least now I just have the "blocked line" alarms due to sleeping on the wrong side.

Dogs are wonderful. We can only hope to be the people they see us as. Meanwhile, I have a cat who hates everything and everyone except whoever is closest to the bag of treats.

[kickingandscreaming]

I have solved (she says with some trepidation) the issue of tubing that gets twisted up in the night.  I use a patient and drain extension line so there's a lot of extra tubing lying around at night.  It seems that while I'm sleeping, the "extra" tubing is having a party and twisting and turning just revving up to give me a low drain alarm.  So I now decide exactly how much/how little tubing I need to leave loose so I can walk to the bathroom.  I take the excess beyond and wrap it around the vertical posts of my cart to keep them flowing freely and to prevent them from "partying" on my sleep time.  It seems to be working.   I still get the occasional position low drain alarm, but nothing like what I was getting during the party phase.

[Mindy]

Kickingandscreaming. THANK YOU you made my night. Now I know who to blame the party animals. LOL Love it.