If you could travel with an incenter machine...

[Zog]

What would the setup look like if you could travel with an incenter machine? I think it would look a little like these pictures!  My wife was in the hospital for a parathyroidectomy last month and they were pumping her full of IV calcium after her surgery on Thursday.  After she put on 7 LITERS Friday and Saturday, she begged them all day Sunday to do dialysis even though the dialysis unit was shut down.  They finally gave in that night and set up a machine in her room around 9:00 PM.  I was worried the resident was waiting for her vitals to crash before figuring out dialysis would be a good thing.

[twirl]

would that be like doing dialysis at home

[Zog]

Not really, I think most people with incenter machines at their house have water rooms instead of dialysate on a cart parked in their door way.  Our NxStage just has a little black box the size of an end table that makes dialysate, although we don't travel with it.  We just pack dialysate in bags. 

We wish Duke Hospital would get a NxStage machine or two for acute care, then doing dialysis in a hospital room wouldn't be such a big production.  The acute care NxStage machine attaches to a special IV pole and is easy to roll around to any room.  I guess the Gambro does roll too, but it takes up most of their tiny rooms.  It's not really a good setup should something go wrong or a Code Blue and the patient would need to be removed from the room quickly.  However, the NxStage machine doesn't allow for easy custom dialysate making I believe.  Jenn was running a high calcium bath with the Gambro.  I don't know if they make a NxStage dialysate bag or line set with a port for calcium, etc.  I'm sure we could rig one, but I don't know if that would be FDA approved, etc.