Difficulties

They've changed my chair at dialysis, so now I look at a wall rather than a window.  But I was interested to see how staff got this elderly man out of his wheelchair and into the dialysis chair.  He's sitting in a bag that's been put around him, then he will be lifted into the air, turned around and lowered into the chair.  The person who occupies the chair next to me has to be helped in the same way, but this the first time I got to see how it's done.

Today was the worst day yet.  An inexperienced technician put in my needles and had so much trouble putting in the second one that he had to call another staffer to help out.  It took so long and was so painful that my blood pressure plummeted and they had to put me on oxygen.  Then throughout the day the alarm on the machine kept going off, and they lowered the pressure of the flow so the dialysis was not as thorough as it should be.  Then they told me that the problem may be that my fistula isn't sufficiently matured and I should talk to the surgeon who put it in.  I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed.

Tomorrow and Monday I will not have to go to dialysis.  Thank goodness.