Wednesday 2014-03-05
A mouse is having an elephant dose.
To avoid eviction I had to increase my hours from 3 and
eventually to 5 before I see the doctor on 17 March. As I am less than 50
kilograms, right now I feel like a poor mouse whose getting the elephant dose.
I’ve been doing 3 hours since 12 Oct 2013, which have been working well and
gradually making me better.
The moment an adult patient sits on the dialysis chair, his journal
on the conveyor belt begins, most of whom would be prescribed a dose of 5
hours, 3 days weekly, 35.5 C machine temperature, Sodium 140mmol/L, heparin
(bolus 1000 unit, hourly rate 1000), and etc..., indifference of age, gender
and weight. Patients who are out of this rage would be disadvantaged, and I
think these poor souls would be likely to fall into haemodialysis mortality
group.
I remember seeing some incidents while sitting on the
dialysis chair. The other day, some poor guy nearly pasted out. What happened
was the fast speed of removing his fluid brought his blood pressure down too
quick and too low, his heart beat reduced to a worrying level. To prevent an
ambulance situation, all his vital figures must be up, to achieve this, fluid
must be restored, and saline was therefore reinfused into his blood.
That day the nurses were very worried and busy, checking his
blood pressure in short intervals, adjusting his chair up and down, down and
up, and he was attended with extra kindness. After about half an hour, his
condition was stabilised, he was letting to sleep and continue his session and
the nurses wiped off their sweat. This patient’s UF target that day was totally
stuffed, but I saw he got two extra packs of cookies (2 cookies in 1 pack)
taking home.
There was another woman whose luck was poorer, experienced a
similar episode but which was in the beginning of her session. Her condition
wasn’t stable enough to continue, so the session was aborted within half an
hour she started. She came in 44kg and went home more than half a kilogram
heavier and I noticed the UF target on her machine was 3 litres and it was a
Saturday! The poor woman ended up the day not only didn’t have her fluid off
instead more fluid was on, not to mention her toxins. The nursed had their
hands on their mouths when recording her weight and eyeing each other with
strange looks.
Last week my fellow patient, 2 hours into her 5 hour session
she wanted to go to the loo, she was washed back and temporarily taken off the
machine. When she stood up her legs started cramp which was another side effect
of removing fluid too fast. She was gasping, her face contorted, and yet too
polite to curse, but one may discern some smothered sound, she kept on saying
sorry while obviously she was miserable suffering tremendous pain and that went
on for about half an hour. In the end, the nurses decided to send her home.
What a pity, they used the BVM machine on me for lie detecting purpose (detail in
my other blog) instead of on her which may have saved her from this incident.
By the way, the reason for her loo break, I think was not to pee, after what
had happen to her earlier whatever she was holding was not there anymore, women
normally can’t hold a pee this long, only shit can be easily scared off.
If only some people could respect science rather than
setting their imaginary goals on dialysis machine, patients would not have to
suffer anymore than what their illness had brought to them.
There are some unbelievable stories that dialysis
concentration solutions could run out of stock which had happened to me twice,
once for real and the other I keep my reservations.
When bad things happen, what can you do?
Like our current Prime Minister used to say, ”Shit happens”!
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