Well….I’ve had a “fun” time since my fistulagram!

My fistulagram happened on April 5th. I was stressing out about it. I wanted to be completely out for it, as I have issues with people other than my husband messing with my fistula. The doctor said they use conscious sedation, which has in the past knocked me out. Not so with this procedure. I could hear everything and felt pressure on my site. It wasn't fun. I didn’t have any blockages or narrowings, but my buttonholes were in a collateral vein which was stealing blood from the real fistula vein. So he inserted a “coil” into the vein to clot it off. My nurse of 20+ years dialysis experience had never heard of them using a coil.

Consequently, I needed new buttonholes created. My husband and I didn't feel comfortable starting them ourselves.

So Saturday we traveled down to the clinic in Saratoga Springs to get buttonholes started. It’s a 2.5 hour drive one way to my new clinic (who allows me to do nocturnal). My nurse wanted me to put the needle in myself with guidance – which I did, but had some difficulty. In the process, I had a major infiltration. My whole diameter of my arm from my elbow up about 4 inches was purple and swollen. They didn’t want to put a needle into that swollen mess, so they ran me on a Braun Single Needle setup. I returned on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and my arm was still too swollen to use the arterial access – so back to the Braun Single Needle. It can process around 45 blood liters in 5 hours (and I’m every other day - versus 74 BLP in 3 hours for my short daily or 184 BLP in 8 hours for my daily nocturnal). I can definitely feel the lack of dialysis!

Yesterday, I was back yet again in Saratoga Springs! I’m getting sick of the drive! We tried the arterial access and it slid in beautifully! Unfortunately, all we were pulling was clots. So, back on the Braun again…

I have a clinic appointment on Thursday, so instead of heading down on Wednesday for dialysis, we are supposed to try to put the needles in at home. We tried tonight - the blood in the tubing was big clots. We'll try again tomorrow and if it doesn't work, I'll head down early on Thursday for a treatment before clinic. I broke down tonight after our failure. I am SO sick of all this - the problems, dialysis taking over my life, not being "normal", etc. Besides the tears I got very dark and depressed. My husband knows it is because I'm under-dialyzed, exhausted, and stressed, but it is hard on him to see me hurting this bad. I've been working on my not-Saratoga days which doesn't help my exhaustion (or my frustration as I'm burning through my PTO - no vacation this year

). I could definitely use a lot of prayer.