Kidney Update: You know how they make those yummy strawberries?

(Previous entries: One, Two, Three, Four, Five)
If you would like to be tested to donate your kidney to me please call 314-362-5365 OR 800-633-9906 OPTION 2

I started dialysis this weekend. My regular visitors know I have chosen to use peritoneal dialysis which is less common and less well known than the more common hemodialysis.

I got my supplies about two weeks ago-to which I have had to designate an entire area of my basement.


This is one month worth of supplies. I will reorder them every 28 days. The green, yellow and red tape on the boxes to the right designate the strength of the fluid that I use during dialysis. The other boxes are supplies I need to do dialysis like cassettes, tubing, gauze, masks, fluid for sterilization of supplies, needles, heparin and various types of caps and clamps for my catheter and tubing.

The yellow is the weakest at 1.5% solution, the green is next at 2.5% and the red is 4.25%. There is also purple which is something like 7.5% but I don't have any of those. The dialysis solution is a mixture of dextrose (sugar), salt, and other minerals dissolved in water. Peritoneal dialysis works just like putting sugar on strawberries and you get that yummy juice out of them; the sugar in the dialysis solution draws the poisons out of my blood stream and tissues, which is then drained out of my body. I will alternate between the yellow and green (one bag per night) for right now. They will do several tests in a few weeks to see what this does to my numbers and then there may or may not be changes made.

The dialysis machine arrived at my house last Friday.


I had to go out and find a table that would hold it and all the supplies I would need daily to do dialysis. I got lucky and found this at GoodWill for 25 bucks. It holds about 1 weeks worth of stuff so that was a nice find. I can reload it each week and then work from that.

The machine is hooked to that bag on top, (which is warmed to body temp by the machine) to me and to a drain line, which you can drain anywhere you don't mind having pee.....which essentially is what comes out of that thing once it leaves my body. Mine drains into the laundry room floor drain. The machine automatically loads me up with solution, lets it dwell inside me for about and hour forty-five minutes and then drains it out. My schedule is to rinse and repeat 4 times through the night-8 hours of dialysis for me. Everyone is given a specific prescription of a total time/dwell time/solution strength.

The first night was horrible. I felt as though I had a giant rock sitting on my chest when I was full and experienced a lot of pain when it was draining. I had a hard time breathing and only got about two hours of sleep that night. The second and third nights have been considerably better. I'm getting use to it and am tolerating it ok now. I am at least now able to sleep and the "drain pain" seems to be worst with the last drain only-which luckily occurs at 6am wake-up time anyway. Pft......who needs an alarm clock now.

Once again, if you would like to be tested to donate your kidney to me please call 314-362-5365 OR 800-633-9906 OPTION 2 BEFORE APRIL 25TH.