Chest Catheter on Thursday

I finally have my procedure scheduled to have the temporary dialysis catheter removed from the right side of my neck and to have a new longer-term dialysis catheter placed in my chest. I am set to go in early Thursday morning to spend a half day sedated and to come out of the hospital with new and different tubes in my body. I know this sounds pretty exciting to you all, but I am actually pleased. The dialysis catheter in my neck is very difficult to deal with. I cannot get it wet, and it does not support a very good dialysis treatment. The machine has to run much slower than normal, and I cannot move (at all) for the entire four hours.

I also went to the hospital this morning for my “thyroid scan with uptake.” They radiologist gave me a radioactive iodine tablet, and wants to see me after four hours. I imagine that they are going to scan my thyroid to see how much iodine it has absorbed or possible used up. They told me not to consume any iodine for the next 24 hours. I also have to go back tomorrow morning to get a 24-hour reading on my thyroid. Hopefully, by my next update, I will have more information about my thyroid problems.

I have one more dialysis treatment tonight using the temporary catheter in my neck. I am not really looking forward to it, as it is a giant pain. I don’t like not being able to move, and my neck usually ends up hurting during most of the treatment due to staying perfectly still. I made it about two hours on Saturday before I was setting off the machine alarms every fifteen minutes. I guess I just can’t quite hold still for that long.

In other news, the surgery on my arm seems to be healing well. It is still a little swollen, but the bruising has gone down quite a bit. The stitches are starting to loosen up, and I am guessing that they will be gone in the next couple of weeks. The surgical scar itself seems like it is healing and staying clean, so that is good. I will be looking forward to when it does not hurt at all, as it still has some pain if I move it too much or too quickly.

Please pray for my procedure(s) on Thursday. Pray that it goes well and that there are no problems. Thanks!

Nathan's Post-Surgery Update - Part II

If you have not read the Post-Surgery Update – Part I, then you should go ahead and scroll down to it and read. Or, just click Post-Surgery Update – Part I. After you finish, then you can read the Part II posting.

I had an appointment for a follow-up with the vascular surgeon on Tuesday afternoon. I went in to his office and he was confused as to why I was there. He said that there was a mistake in scheduling and that I would not need to come back until January. I was not too pleased by this information, as it means that I am going to have tubes hanging out of my neck for the next six weeks. This is a problem, especially since the radiologist that put the catheter in said that it was temporary (only for a week’s worth of use).

So, disappointed, I returned home to prepare for dialysis. They finally moved me to a chair where the machine is on my left just like my fistula (not that I was using the fistula Tuesday). The nurse laid me down in the chair, and hooked up my temporary catheter to the machine. It did not work nearly as well as a fistula (it ran very slowly from what I could guess) and I could not move during the entire treatment. If I moved my head, then the dialysis machine went into alarm. So, I got to lie still for four hours (not fun).

The nephrologist came to visit Tuesday evening. He asked why I had a catheter in my neck and not in my chest. I told him that I was not sure, but apparently I was supposed to schedule my own surgery (and know what to ask for) when the surgeon scheduled my fistula revision. So, the nephrologist said that he would get a hold of the hospital to set up an appointment to get the neck catheter taken out and have a long-term catheter placed in my chest while we wait on my fistula to heal.

So, all in all, Monday was quite frustrating. The surgeon did not tell me when to arrive for my surgery, he did not tell me that I needed to previously schedule my own catheter insertion, and he did have me properly scheduled for a follow-up appointment.

So, now it is Wednesday. I am back at work today and am waiting for a call from the hospital to schedule me a time to have my neck catheter removed and a chest catheter inserted. It looks like my fistula won’t be ready to use for about six more weeks. The only nice thing is that my elbow really doesn’t hurt too much, and it looks like it is healing well (from what I saw).

I apologize for this post being two posts long. I did not intend for there to be this many problems or for me to end up looking like I didn’t go to medical school. I guess if I had, then I would have known what to do for this surgery. Oh well, better luck next time.

Oh yeah, I just remembered. To top it all off, my cardiologist called on Monday and said that my blood work made it look like I have a hyper thyroid problem. So, that’s one more thing that I have to take care of this week. I am supposed to set up an appointment for a thyroid check with uptake (whatever that means). Hopefully this will not be a major problem. I know that I don’t need any more of those.