Power outage

[vcarmody]

All day today I was worried about doing my husband treatment because we are in the middle of what seems like the storm of the century.  At around 9 PM we started his treatment (we have only been home for a little over a week). At 10:40 sure enough what I was worried about happened, the power went out, but only for a second.  I was all prepared with a flashlight and anything else, just in case.... but I was not prepared for what happened when the power came back on.  When we were in training they kept saying if the power goes out for more then two minutes manually rinse back his blood.  Well the power came back on, so did the machine but it did not start running again.  I was like the mad hatter rushing around, pushing stop, treatment,  reading through the manuals and I could find nothing on what to do. All I seen was how to do a manual rinse back if the power didn't come back.  So after like a minute or two of freaking out I decided to just do a manual rinse back, which I did with no problem even though the machine start making the loudest noise ever as soon as I opened the cycler door (sounded like the fan was blowing up).  After I did the rinse back and pulled his needles and re-set the cycler, I called Nxstage and was informed that if the power goes out and comes back on, sense the cycler was set to on,  you need to turn the power off to the cycler and turn it back on, then you will get a yellow 40, then you can hit treatment again.  No where in the manual could I find this, it is probably in there somewhere, but I couldn't find it.  Wanted to share this in case anyone else could use this information.     

[tyefly]

scary... for sure..... I have only been with Nxstage for two weeks..... I am thinking I need a portable genset....

[M3Riddler]

All day today I was worried about doing my husband treatment because we are in the middle of what seems like the storm of the century.  At around 9 PM we started his treatment (we have only been home for a little over a week). At 10:40 sure enough what I was worried about happened, the power went out, but only for a second.  I was all prepared with a flashlight and anything else, just in case.... but I was not prepared for what happened when the power came back on.  When we were in training they kept saying if the power goes out for more then two minutes manually rinse back his blood.  Well the power came back on, so did the machine but it did not start running again.  I was like the mad hatter rushing around, pushing stop, treatment,  reading through the manuals and I could find nothing on what to do. All I seen was how to do a manual rinse back if the power didn't come back.  So after like a minute or two of freaking out I decided to just do a manual rinse back, which I did with no problem even though the machine start making the loudest noise ever as soon as I opened the cycler door (sounded like the fan was blowing up).  After I did the rinse back and pulled his needles and re-set the cycler, I called Nxstage and was informed that if the power goes out and comes back on, sense the cycler was set to on,  you need to turn the power off to the cycler and turn it back on, then you will get a yellow 40, then you can hit treatment again.  No where in the manual could I find this, it is probably in there somewhere, but I couldn't find it.  Wanted to share this in case anyone else could use this information.   

Hi Vcarmody,

You can find the information you are looking for on page 159 of the System One Manual. I know its too late now, but it is there for future reference. I also believe they should have gone over power outages and recovery at training.....

///M3R

[texasstyle]

We do in center but I have read to let your local power company know you are doing dialysis at home. Supposedly, this puts you first on the list to have power restored. I'm sorry you had to have an outage during a session.

[vcarmody]

I must not have the same NxStage System One manual because I don't have a page 157.  We did go over power outages but only how to do a manual rinse back, I assumed when the power came back the machine would just start back up.... now I know different.  This whole thing is a learning experience so each new thing that happens just extends our knowledge. Glad there are so many people that are out there to help!!

[cookie2008]

Call your electric company and explain to them that you have a life support machine for dialysis at home they will mail you a consent form for your doctor to fill out and they will put you on the list for when the power goes out and they will come to your house and out something on your meter.

That was a terrible learning experience vicky, the book I have it is in trooble shooting (40) and (41)  pages 6-49 to 6-50 we should have the same manual.

[vcarmody]

Thanks Cookie, Dr T already filled out our paperwork for the electric company and the meter has been tagged so were good there.  I thought I was all prepared if the power went out, had flashlights and the instruction out on how to do a manual rinse back.... now I have learned a very good lesson,   READ the book prior to an incident, LOL. 

[Zog]

You should practice how to handle the yellow 40 under safe conditions sometime.  Before you connect, while you are priming, when the machine gets to 23.0 (when you snap and tap), turn the switch off on the back.  Go take a break, watch TV, read a book... come back a few minutes or hours later.  Turn on the machine.  If you are lucky the 40 will pop up and you will have like 3 minutes of priming to redo.  Press treatment.  (This is a trick also if you for some reason can't do treatment when it is finished priming, but you don't want to waste the cartridge or keep the machine idling for hours.)

As for power outages with blood in the lines, just stay calm and hope for a "40" when the power comes back within 2 minutes.  We usually just do a manual rinseback if there is a storm and she has finished UF.  Because if the power flicks off once during a storm, it will probably keep flickering. 

We have struggled with getting the machine to stop also!  If you hold the stop button down for a few seconds during any treatment the numbers will go to "000".  Then press stop again and "277" or "273" or whatever your rinseback is set at will come up and then you can rinseback in the middle of stopping a treatment.  The only time this doesn't work well is when you have a yellow "2".  That is when I want to destroy the machine, but keep your cool.  Shut it off, connect for rinseback, open the door and rinse back.

Did they ever teach you how to connect the blood lines together during treatment and let the machine idle with blood in it so you can take a bathroom break(#2)?

[vcarmody]

You should practice how to handle the yellow 40 under safe conditions sometime.  Before you connect, while you are priming, when the machine gets to 23.0 (when you snap and tap), turn the switch off on the back.  Go take a break, watch TV, read a book... come back a few minutes or hours later.  Turn on the machine.  If you are lucky the 40 will pop up and you will have like 3 minutes of priming to redo.  Press treatment.  (This is a trick also if you for some reason can't do treatment when it is finished priming, but you don't want to waste the cartridge or keep the machine idling for hours.)

Thanks so much for the information, wish I had read it earlier.  We were waiting all day for a call from his foot doctor and of course as soon as we were ready to start his treatment he called and said he wanted him to start these two prescriptions tonight for the infection in his foot.  It was 8:00 and I thought there is no way I can run to the pharmacy now, so I had to call my niece and ask her to pick them up.  If I had read this I could have shut off the power and ran to the pharmacy. 
They did go over how to circulated his blood if he needed to go the the bathroom.  But I don't remember it at all, I am actually gonna read up on everything again.  I was so nervous during training that I don't think I retained much of what they tried to teach me.    Its so nice to be home, he seems so much more comfortable, and having this forum is great it has been such a help to me.  Thanks everyone!

[Zog]

One word of warning, if you turn the machine off and back on after you have a 23.0 and have snapped and tapped and pressed stop, you will get an 88 which means there is a cartridge in the door.
You have to start the whole prime over.  You have to remove the cartridge.  You can still use this cartridge, but you are going to have to place the saline bag on the floor (on a drape) and drain the balance chambers.  Then put the cartridge back in, close the door, hang the saline back up and press fill.  Of course don't disconnect any lines on the cartridge while you are doing this, don't risk contamination. 

Good luck.  This stuff gets easier as you do it more often.  We made a short list of alarm codes and what to do so we don't go flipping through the book.  I suggest flipping through the book at first (or copying the toubleshooting section sheets and laminating them), but after awhile you start to remember what to do, you just need to know what the code means.

This is a list I made two years ago.  I have a newer layout of this that I can't find, but it is a start.  I suggest you make your own list that you understand.  Don't hold me accountable for any of this information.  The reason the NxStage troubleshooting section is so cumbersome, is that they were probably thinking they were going to get sued the whole time they wrote it.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiEa8NMba3u9dG05YTl4VkF0LS1vZmdpRFZuWElKMlE&hl=en

Hope the foot gets better.