Deaths in the dialysis unit

[virrat]

Hi all;

I have been having a rough week because two of my fellow patients are not doing so well.  I think one is going to make it, but it does not look good for the other (he is 80 and has been in hospital for four weeks).  I cannot help but be affected by what they are going through because I have the same fear; I am able to empathise with them.  When I did dialysis before, I was a young kid caught up in my own world trying to cope with my condition, but now I have come to realise that, like or not, we are connected to each other and what happens to one has the potential to affect another.

Any thoughts? Any suggestions?

Part of me thinks that I am trying to absorb some of their pain to help minimise their duress, but I cannot be sure.

Virrat

[meadowlandsnj]

Hi all;



Any thoughts? Any suggestions?

Part of me thinks that I am trying to absorb some of their pain to help minimise their duress, but I cannot be sure.

Virrat

When I don't see a patient who I know is supposed to be on my shift I always ask about them.  I've had two patients I know die.  I don't dwell on it, you can't.     Life goes forward and we have to go forward.  I used to really really hurt when I saw another patient get sick but it happens.  I feel bad for them.  And I feel lucky I'm doing pretty good!

Donna

[bluedove57]

I watched a good friend in dialysis go into cardiac arrest while on the machine and not make it. I also lost 2 friends like family and it is hard but you can't dwell on it or you will drive yourself crazy. Just remember the good times you all had and the chance of knowing them. In our unit we are like family and we hurt for each other. Make the best of your treatments and laugh as much as you can. In my unit is were we raise hell and crack jokes. That always helps especially because we understand each other. Chin up.....life must go on.

[Triker]

I've seen several go in the last year and a half. One was a close friend that just recently died. It reminds me that I need to live my life like there's no tommorrow.

[Sluff]

I'm not on dialysis so I don't know if I should comment or not but I just lost a friend to Liver disease, she was waiting for transplant. It's hard sometimes and even harder when you see these people on a regular schedule but I'm a firm believer that when it is your time to go nothing will make a difference.

Be right with god or your higher power, be ready in case it is your turn.

Post respectfully submitted.

[Rerun]

People die.  Healthy people die.  If you didn't grieve a friends death something would be wrong with you.  You have had a loss.  Of Course you are going to think of your own mortality.  Everyone does when a friend dies.  We, being dialysis patients, just have more friends that die.  We will be there someday and our firends left on earth will grieve for us.  It is normal. 

[nextnoel]

I'm a firm believer that when it is your time to go nothing will make a difference.

I agree with you, but what if I'm a passenger in a plane and it's the pilot's time to go!?!  (Just kidding - I think your advice about being ready is excellent.)

[livecam]

I agree with you, but what if I'm a passenger in a plane and it's the pilot's time to go!?! 

You go up to the cockpit, drag him off, sit down, put the headsets on, and ask for help.  You really aren't gonna let yourself die just because the pilot did. 

[nextnoel]

I agree with you, but what if I'm a passenger in a plane and it's the pilot's time to go!?! 

You go up to the cockpit, drag him off, sit down, put the headsets on, and ask for help.  You really aren't gonna let yourself die just because the pilot did. 

Excellent point - thanks for reminding me!

[goofynina]

I also find it comforting at the time of a loved one's passing to understand it was their time to go BUT i cant help but feel bad for HOW they had to go, i have lost many friends and family members due to cancer, being electrocuted (while he was working),  hit by a drunk driver, those are just a few of many, i do know that life is precious and you just dont know when your time is to go, so letting one know how you feel about them is always important, you dont have to go into detail, just a simple "i love you" or "i appreciate you" or something nice to say to them, cuz you just never know if its going to be the last time you see them,  sorry for rambling on, i always get so nervous talking about this subject, so, i want you all to know here and now,  I LOVE YOU ALL and I APPRECIATE YOU ALL and thank you for being a part of my life 

Now, as a wonderful friend of mine always says Let's just all "Keep on Keepin' on" 
(thanks Bajanne) 

[devlinswife]

When I first started dialysis, the first person I cared about that I lost wasn't a patient she was my nurse, she went to a picnic was playing volleyball and just died. So we never know, we sometimes outlast the "healthy ones".

I have lost several friends now to the awful world of kidney disease, and yeah each time it shakes me up, but I do keep moving on, and realize if it wasn't for us being sick I probably wouldn't have had the pleasure of meeting them.

[Wattle]

       Seven years ago a very close friend died after a hard fight with Leukemia. She was 31, a radiographer, had worked really hard to get where she was, gorgeous and a true loyal friend. During her training she had learnt everything there was to know about PKD (the cause of my renal failure). She made it her job to look out for me! Everything changed SO quickly. Our world was turned upside down and life took on a whole new meaning. Live life for today. We have no idea what is store for us tomorrow. Enjoy every moment. Keep going forward as a tribute to those gone before us.   

[angieskidney]

I had a hard time when Jamie (member of these forums and also was in the exact same dialysis unit as me in 2005) died. He talked about it as if he expected it to happen but I didn't because he was as young as me and we are supposed to be too young to die

It really freaked me out. But the thing is he was having a hard time on dialysis (coming in 7kg up after weekends and 5+kg up during the week) and his heart would actually stop during his run as he would start crashing every time because it was too much to take off. He was never transferred to the Self Care unit that I am at now because he never was well enough.

He had just did a magic show for the Kidney Foundation Christmas party a little over a month earlier where he made my neice an honorary magician (He was such a good magician he actually was the creator of some really good tricks!) and I thought he was doing fine! Shows how much I knew He kept a lot to himself but he really did tell more on these forums than he did to people in real life..

I guess I had a hard time because he was my exact age in my exact unit. I guess it just was too close to home .. ya know what I mean?? 

[stauffenberg]

During my eight years on dialysis I saw several patients die, but what most affected me was the frightening panic among the nurses and doctors when the critical situation first emerged and the intervention to save the patient's life began.  In every case after a patient died I noticed the same phenomenon: as if on signal to symbolize their sense of helplessness, all the doctors gathered around put their hands in their pockets.  I will never forget the expression on one doctor who had tried electric cardiac stimulation of a dying patient.  After it failed to revive the patient, the doctor looked up with the most sheepish expression on his face I have ever seen.  Another scene in the dialysis unit I remember was when I was once walking past the elevators.  Suddenly the huge doors of the elevator opened with a dramatic flourish, and there, lying on the elevator floor, as if this were the impressive sight the "curtain" had parted to let us see, was a dead patient, who had collapsed en route to dialysis treatment.  For some strange reason it struck me as a tragi-comic scene.

[boxman55]

Wow I have been on dialysis for 6 months and reading this thread just made me realize that the possibility of death at the clinic well is possible. I have something new to think about. Bummer--Boxman55

[del]

6 years at the same unit we saw a lot of people die.  Being with them 3 days a week they were like family so it is only normal to grieve when one of them dies.

[angieskidney]

Wow I have been on dialysis for 6 months and reading this thread just made me realize that the possibility of death at the clinic well is possible. I have something new to think about. Bummer--Boxman55

Actually I don't think about death much because I am under 50 but it does hit you from time to time when faced with it as we are. But I wouldn't dwell on it. You take care of yourself the best you can and think about all the thing you want to acheive and keep moving forward. I don't let death bring me down. But it has gotten me more aware and want to be more ontop of my care and not put my life into the medical staff's hands.

[billoggblog]

When I was on hemo. the guy next to me crashed on the machine, the nurses and doctors tried everything, but he died.  I had seen people die before, but I had been talking to him 20 minutes earlier.  The first feeling that came over me was total helplessness, I was 10 feet away and could do nothing to help. It took me weeks to get over that.

[Wattle]

When I was on hemo. the guy next to me crashed on the machine, the nurses and doctors tried everything, but he died.  I had seen people die before, but I had been talking to him 20 minutes earlier.  The first feeling that came over me was total helplessness, I was 10 feet away and could do nothing to help. It took me weeks to get over that.

The very same thing happened to my dad while he was on Hemo but the guy was his brother. Needless to say they did try everything.. until my dad asked them to stop. They had been going together to the same unit for a couple of years. The nice thing was they were together, dad was actually talking to him. He just slumped in the chair and didn't answer him. Dad always found comfort in knowing he didn't feel anything.

[renal30yrs]

2 patients in my unit passed away already this year.  But then I've seen many more death than most of us would probanblly care for.  They don't necessary tell  you but a lot of transplant patients seem to die.

[sandman]

When I was on hemo. the guy next to me crashed on the machine, the nurses and doctors tried everything, but he died.  I had seen people die before, but I had been talking to him 20 minutes earlier.  The first feeling that came over me was total helplessness, I was 10 feet away and could do nothing to help. It took me weeks to get over that.

I have heard quite a number of patients talking about "crashing" while on dialysis and Angie has made note of how she has started crashing while she was on the machine several times.  Angie has explained to me what crashing is so it worries me when I hear that word from a dialysis patient anymore.  Now I understand why there is a heart defib machine in every clinic.  Angie has told me a few times, that I should not be so worried but when her friend Jamie G died and he was her age when it happened, suggests to me that no one is excluded just because of their age.

They don't necessary tell you but a lot of transplant patients seem to die.

Would you know if that would be during or after the procedure?

[renal30yrs]

When I was on hemo. the guy next to me crashed on the machine, the nurses and doctors tried everything, but he died.  I had seen people die before, but I had been talking to him 20 minutes earlier.  The first feeling that came over me was total helplessness, I was 10 feet away and could do nothing to help. It took me weeks to get over that.

I have heard quite a number of patients talking about "crashing" while on dialysis and Angie has made note of how she has started crashing while she was on the machine several times.  Angie has explained to me what crashing is so it worries me when I hear that word from a dialysis patient anymore.  Now I understand why there is a heart defib machine in every clinic.  Angie has told me a few times, that I should not be so worried but when her friend Jamie G died and he was her age when it happened, suggests to me that no one is excluded just because of their age.

They don't necessary tell you but a lot of transplant patients seem to die.

Would you know if that would be during or after the procedure?

Many transplant patients are lost over the years after the procedures.  Most half-decent facilities will not kill you right away.  Afterwards some succumb to infections and others stroke out.  Immunosupressives can aggravate any pre-existing conditions.

[stauffenberg]

Although a large-scale statistical study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1999  (no. 341, pp. 1725-1730) showed that transplant offered, even then, a large increase in survival time for those with endstage renal disease, it is still the case that 42.5% of all failures of transplanted kidneys are due to the death of the patient whose body is keeping them functioning (Danovitch, Handbook of Kidney Transplantation, 2001, p. 183), so there are problems both with and without a transplant.  A transplant is still preferable, however, since, for example, for those in the 20 to 39 year old age group, the life expectancy for those without diabetes on a transplant waiting list was 20 years in 1999, and for those in that same age group with diabetes on the waiting list was only 8 years.  But with a transplant, the first group's life expectancy jumped to 31 years, and the second group's increased to 25 years -- almost three times longer than on dialysis.