Hurricane

[jambo101]

 I'm presuming a cat 5 hurricane will knock out much power, how do people on dialysis cope with such an event?

[Simon Dog]

The big dialysis companies have an emergency number for people who can't get D.  It didn't help a bunch of people in PR who had to be evacuated to funeral homes instead of clinics.

Fresenius has a mobile team that goes into disaster areas to set up dialysis - including trailers to house staff.

[rcjordan]

Home dialysis patients need to evacuate to an area where the infrastructure is likely to remain intact.   Fresenius recommends keeping 2 weeks of supply on hand.  That said, they have become stingy with the dialysate bags and it's *hard* to have the recommended 2 weeks.  You'd also better have a full-size van or truck available, as it's a LOT of bulk & weight to be transporting.

Coastal NC here. Watching Dorian closely.  Bug-out bag ready.

<added>
Doc said that if we got in a low dialysate situation to reduce it from 30L/session to 15 to conserve & extend. This works because the early part of the session is the most efficient.

[Riki]

We have storm procedures in place, but they are meant for snow storms.  I doubt that a Cat 2 hurricane was part of the emergency planning.  I'm hoping that once this thing blows through tomorrow, that the damage won't be too great that the unit won't be operational.  It is in the basement of the hospital, after all.

[Simon Dog]

Doc said that if we got in a low dialysate situation to reduce it from 30L/session to 15 to conserve & extend. This works because the early part of the session is the most efficient.

Ask if you should slow down the BFR/UF rates to run the limited dialysate over a longer period of time.

[Michael Murphy]

If centers are knocked out the procedure I heard of is undamaged clinics are identified housing found for clinic employee by undamaged clinic so the treatments are cut by a hour, remote staff keeps clinics functioning for longer hours.  When home clinics are restored patients and staff return home.  If they still have homes.

[Riki]

We didn't lose much, except for a lot of trees and a night of power.  It took about a week to get the entire province back on the grid, though.  It was kind of weird.  We had power, but we could see that the next street over did not.  On Sunday, after the storm was over, my mom and I went out to visit a friend of hers whose husband has Alzheimer's.  They had no power.  On the way home, we saw a lot of people sitting in their cars in their driveways with the cars running.  My guess is that they were charging their phones.  When I got into dialysis on Monday, I was told stories of the power going on and off all day Saturday, until finally they gave everyone their blood back and sent them home

[rcjordan]

>We didn't lose much, except for a lot of trees and a night of power.

Same here in coastal NC, except it was 48 hours without power.  No damage, no leaks at the house. We we under mandatory evacuation orders, so we packed up the cycler and supplies and 'evacuated' to the Hampton Inn about 8 miles north of us but in town, where power & services were available.

I was due for a session, but opted to do it at home using a portable generator rather than haul all the supplies into the hotel.  We needed to experience using our generator for ddialysis, anyway. This was a good opportunity.  All went well.

[kristina]

Hello rcjordan,
I am so glad that everything went alright and I wish you and all the others around this area all the best and good luck! 

[Riki]

>We didn't lose much, except for a lot of trees and a night of power.

Same here in coastal NC, except it was 48 hours without power.

I live downtown, so we got our power back a little quicker.  There were others in other part of Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia were without power for about a week.  A friend of mine who lives on the other side of the city was out for 52 hours.  The biggest problem is with food spoilage, especially for those with low incomes