Movin' on Up

I received another successful dialysis treatment Tuesday evening. They had a little bit of trouble sticking me, but my arm does not seem any worse for the wear today. They are still having troubles with the arterial side, and I was afraid that they had infiltrated it last night, but it doesn't look that way. I was also finally able to get my dry weight moved up. They are now allowing me to stay at 68 kg (which is up from the original 66 kg in the hospital). This means that I hopefully won't feel dehydrated at dialysis for quite a while. Well, at least until my weight goes up enough that I start to notice again. But, it is good to know that I can talk to the doctors and get my weight adjusted as needed to keep me feeling well. And, since I am eating well once again, despite my restricted diet, I plan to get my weight up to something more normal for my height.

I'm going to try something new this week. Our Adult Bible Fellowship class at church has a service project planned for this Saturday. They have scheduled to go to the Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls from 2pm – 5 pm. Since my dialysis is supposed to start between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm, and the Buckner organization is about 45 minutes away from the dialysis clinic, I would not be able to attend this event. But, the dialysis clinic does allow you move your treatment if you are not able to come in at your regularly scheduled time. On Thursday, I am going to ask to have my Saturday treatment done during the early morning shift rather than at my usual evening shift. I talked to the clinic last Saturday and they said that it was possible, but I would have to check back on Thursday. So, I will. This would be a great opportunity to serve God in a tangible way. I am looking forward to going to Buckner to help out.

If you want to find out more about the Buckner program, please visit them on the web at http://www.shoesfororphansouls.org/.

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On an off-topic note, Google released their instant messaging / voice chat program called Google Talk today. This IM program requires that you log in with your GMail user name and password. That makes it kind of difficult for me to use it to chat with anyone as I only know a handful of people that are using GMail. Oh well, as more people find out about it I should get a chance to try out this new technology.

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That's all for today. Please feel free to post comments online or to send me an e-mail. Since I am still off of work this week, I will have lots of time to read and respond to anyone that writes.

Not Dehydrated Last Time

I had another successful dialysis treatment on Saturday. Whenever I go to dialysis, they always take my weight before and after the treatment. The goal of this is to help maintain my “dry weight”. This dry weight was determined at the hospital, before I started my first dialysis. They decided that I should weight 66 kg. Now, that isn’t much at all, and during my first outpatient dialysis treatment, they took off too much fluid, dehydrating me, and ended up having to add some extra fluid at the end of the treatment. So, they decided to up my weight to 67 kg. Since then, I am eating better (even on my restricted diet) and have gained a little weight. So, I think it’s time to up my dry weight again.

Thursday’s treatment left me with low blood pressure and a light-headed feeling. I saw my cardiologist on Friday. She told me that I had most likely gained weight and needed to let the clinic know to increase my dry weight. She said that I was probably having too much fluid filtered out of my blood, and I agreed. When I went to dialysis on Saturday, I only weight 67.7 kg (which is 0.7 kg above my weight). They ended up filtering off about 700 cc of fluid that night, and my weight when I left was 68.2 kg. They seemed a bit confused of how I could gain weight during a treatment, but I mentioned that they had had to add more fluid this time to keep my blood pressure and heart rate at a normal level and not drop too low.

I should get to see the nephrologist at the clinic next week and let him know that the cardiologist recommended increasing my dry weight on record. I used to weigh 165 pounds (which is 75 kg) before my surgery, so maybe I can get my dry weight at least back up into the 70's.

Here are some prayer requests I have for this week:

• I am scheduled to go back to work on Monday, August 29. Please pray that I will be well enough to perform my duties at work and that I will continue to stay healthy enough to keep up a full work and dialysis schedule after not doing anything all summer.
• Now that my insurance card has arrived, please pray that the transplant paperwork will be processed quickly so that I can get tested and put on the transplant list.
  

August 10

I had another dialysis treatment last night. This one was not quite as great as the last few, but they are not worried. I only ran at a rate of 230 cc/min last night (and the normally did 300 cc/min). They said that they didn't want to go too fast with the small needles and with my developing fistula. I don't know if that is something to worry about or not. My heart rate was high at the end of the night again today, but not quite as bad as on Saturday. They still don't have any advice for me. They just said to make sure I go see my cardiologist.

They took off 2500 cc of fluid last night (which is a little over a pound). Even at a rate of 230 cc/min, I was still only hooked up to the machine for four hours. The best I can understand it, the machine just calculates the amount of fluid you need removed and pulls it off evenly over the four hours, regardless of how quickly your blood flows through the machine. So, as long as I am on the little needles, I need to keep a smaller fluid intake between treatments.

The hardest part of dialysis is my new diet. I had a restricted diet before because my kidneys did not properly remove sodium or potassium from my bloodstream. So, I have been watching my intake of those chemicals for a couple of years now. But, now that I am in dialysis, I have a new set of restrictions to watch. (This all comes from the renal dietician, whom I saw on Saturday).

Here is my recommended diet:

• 8 to 10 ounces of protein a day
• 1400 to 1600 milligrams of potassium a day
• 1500 milligrams of phosphorus a day
• 2500 milligrams of sodium a day
• 4 cups of fluid a day (plus whatever I output on my own)
• A total of 2400 calories a day

So now, in addition to what I was watching before, I have to take care of how much phosphorus I take in. This is a problem because pretty much all foods contain phosphorus. And, some of the highest foods are dairy products. So, all of that protein that I am supposed to be taking in cannot come from the cheese, yogurt, or peanut butter that I used to eat. I know peanut butter isn't dairy, but it is high in phosphorus. I am supposed to cut my milk intake to three serving a week, which I think is going to be tough. I'm also supposed to be eating 10 to 14 servings of bread/starch a day (I don't know how I'll do that) and 8 to 10 ounces of proten/meat per day. Fun fun.

So, you can invite me over to eat if you like. I'll have a turkey and bread sandwich, no cheese. Or maybe I'll have a few doughnuts and a bagel. I've got to figure out how to eat a little more bread (though I doubt I'll hit that 14 serving mark). But don't worry, once I have my transplant, I'll be enjoying pizza again!

My prayer requests are:

• Pray that I will be able to adjust my diet so that I can remain healthy
• Pray that my fistula will continue to develop properly
• Pray that my cardiologist will have some advice about my high heart rate
• Pray that my insurance card will show up so that I can start my transplant paperwork