Adventures in PD: Another night to remember

[kickingandscreaming]

 
           

The night started normally.  Set up my cycler, hooked up, went to sleep. Then at 1pm, the cycler alarmed and it was a low drain/ Check drain line.   It was drain 2 of 5 and it wasn't happening at all.  Stuck at 39ml.  Called Baxter 10 times and was disconnected 9 of them.  Got through to one tech who wasn't as helpful as i needed her to be.  She told me I needed to connect a new drain extension line as the original probably was defective.  At that hour of the morning, I had NO idea HOW to disconnect the line mid-stream as i had never done that before.  And she wasn't giving my any clues.  Just then that conversation was disconnected.  So there I sat, surrounded by miles of tubing, trying to figure out something to do that would stop the insanity and not contaminate myself.   Since there was no help available, I was on my own.  Totally.

I ended up aborting the session since I think I found a piece of fibrin in the drain line-- and that was probably what was causing t he issue.  I dragged myself to my basement to find a manual bag, and then tried to remember HOW to hook that up to drain what hadn't come out the cycler way.  I think I managed to do it OK.  So now, this morning I have hundreds of bags to deal with and miles of tubing, and no dialysis last night.  I'm really unhappy about Baxter's tech support lately.  I don't know if the disconnects had to do with my phone or theirs.  But I do know that their waiting on hold lately is unnacceptable (even if it doesn't end in a disconnected call)





fixed smiley mod Cas

[Charlie B53]

And I WAS thinking about taking on a part=time job, nights, at home from my computer, doing tech support troubleshooting.  Don't know the name of the Company, yet.   But it would certainly involve handling customer calls from their home, when things go wrong.

Maybe I should re-think the idea.  Not sure sure I want to be that contact person, not able to do much but suggest things.  Never can actually do anything for them.

[cassandra]

I'm sorry you had such a horrible night KaS. Shockingly bad service from Baxter that. I would definitely complain to Baxter about that.
Wishing you all the best for tonight. Will you be using Heparin in your bag?

Love, strength and luck, Cas

[kickingandscreaming]

Will you be using Heparin in your bag?

I sure will.  Tonight and tomorrow night.  Hopefully, that will clear the way to safe sailing.  Can't afford too many nights like last night.   I did call Baxter this morning and told them that I had called 10 times and was on the line for up to 24 minutes at a time before being disconnected.  The Rep said she would pass the info along to someone who could actually look into the matter.  Here's hoping.  Right now, Baxter is kind of backed up.  They had a tech retire and are training a new tech.  So everything is slower with more hold time.  Bad enough without the hang ups.

[cassandra]

Good Girl and good luck!


 Love,