Tuesday, January 15, 2013

October 17 through 19, 2012 - First week at the dialysis clinic

Today's post is a short one since it only covers Mom's first week of dialysis at the clinic. Her dialysis schedule is Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and she had dialysis in the hospital on Monday.

In blog news, I have added a search box to the right side of the page so you can search this blog for a specific word or phrase. For instance, if you want to find that blog post about Mom's trip to Russia, just search for "Russia" and you'll get a page with a link to that post at the top. If you want to see all the posts where cats are mentioned, just search for "cat." (Ironically, the hits for those two searches are currently the same.)

October 17, 2012 (Wednesday): Today was Mom's first visit to the dialysis clinic closest to her house. My sister Amy drove her there, and my sister Laura picked her up. Mom was pleased with everyone at the clinic, including the manager who made a point of welcoming her. The only complication today was that her blood pressure got low either during or after dialysis, and they told her that she is not supposed to take her blood pressure medication the mornings of her dialysis. I guess it would have been nice if someone had told her that before her first dialysis appointment. She got a little cold during dialysis and then colder after she got home, so she’ll need to take a heavier blanket next time. She was slightly light-headed after she got home, but not totally exhausted.

October 19: Mom started feeling a little light-headed and had some chest pain early in today’s dialysis treatment. She notified the nurse who slowed down the flow rate of the machine, and she immediately felt better. The nephrologist wants her to have a stress test as a result of that, just to make sure there aren't any cardiac issues. He’s going to contact her cardiologist, and Mom will schedule an appointment with him. She was cold again after dialysis, but she was fine the next day and felt good enough to go to the soccer game of one of my nephews.

That's about it for the first week. We were expecting some minor issues as her body adjusts to being on dialysis and as she learns how to deal with being on dialysis. So far, so good I suppose. Let's see how the second week goes . . .

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