Day 2

I suppose "technically" it's not day 2 since we're still waiting to hear from the hospice people.  I have no way of knowing how long it will take for TPTB at Duke to provide the requested records.

But, I might as well document, to some degree, the day by day progression.  I probably will not write something every day; only when I have time, inclination, and want to record my thoughts and observations.

I do hope it won't be long before we hear something - it's very hard living in "limbo".

Last night's dialysis was a disaster.  The problem really started the night before (Monday night/Tuesday morning), but I didn't realize it.  I did notice there was more excess solution to throw away, but it just didn't register.  Then last night, he wouldn't drain.  After 45 minuites, and only draining 15 ml (I thought it should be 2500+)  It finally sunk in that the reason for the excess solution was that the machine mysteriously repogrammed itself, and skipped the last fill cycle.  So, we tried to bypass.  But only 500 ml into that phase, and Jimmy said he was in pain, so I stopped the machine.  He sat up for awhile in pain, and was nauseated, choking and heaving.  Once he felt better, I started over with a new cassette, and programmed it to show no fill ... but again, 45 minutes later it alarmed with only 15 ml drained.  It was by then well after midnight, so I just turned it off.

This morning (way too early) we went in to the dialysis center.  The nurse couldn't really give us answers; but she was able to get several cycles done.  She also reprogrammed the flash drive, so hopefully whatever made it change is now fixed.

Meantime, Jimmy is not having a very good day; but a lot of that is from getting tired.  He took a 4 hour nap when we got home.  He didn't want to eat, so I gave him a protein drink.  When he woke from his nap, he was asking if it was time to go.  Go where? I ask - go to exercise.    I really have to learn to be patient; I just calmly explained that it's just a Wednesday night, and we're not going anywhere.

I fixed a dinner he would normally like - cube steaks with gravy - but he's barely eaten.  The nurse said we should use heparin in the solution tonight (he normally does the injections because my vision is too bad to do it).  He was trying to tell me that the heparin doesn't "keep", and that earlier ones have to be thrown out.  Again, I (patiently I hope) explained that we only inject the exact number of bags of solution to be used that night, never any "extra".  I'm not even sure if he understood.

There are also some family issues in the background causing a lot of stress; but I won't go into the specifics now.  If they become serious problems, I may want to "talk it out".  Otherwise, it has no bearing.

I guess thata's all for tonight.  I'm exhausted (up too early - got shopping done since we were out -spent too much time in the yard, although I didn't actually "do" anything (my friend did) - supper. Ad still have to finish the dialysis set up.