It is amazing how quickly things can go from awesome to crappy. This took, in total, about 3 hours, but I knew the minute it began. All it takes is one person who puts faith in their own experience overrides their ability to listen. In this case it was a dialysis tech whose absolute faith that she knew the behavior of dialysis access' better than me. I don't like details. They are long, and take too many words, so here's the situation.
My dialysis access has been brokenated. Right now my arm hurts - a lot. I went to the emergency room late Friday night, where I waited three hours for them to tell me to call a vascular surgeon on Monday. "But," said me, "I have dialysis Monday morning, and I can't dialyse if it's not working."
paraphrase of the ER doctor: "Tough titties, kid. Call a doctor in 3 days."
Yeah I know, it's not immediately life threatening. If I don't dialyse, however, I die, and I can't dialyse while the access is broken. It's a crappy situation, especially considering that it could have been avoided if I'd complained more, or if the tech had been more willing to listen to the advice i was giving. Instead I get to go through the thrill of surgery, which may or may not fix my arm. I may end up with a central line, a sexy catheter jutting out of a vein in my neck or chest, while I wait for my old dialysis access to heal, or from a new dialysis access to become useable.
Things like this are bound to happen, I suppose, but I've done a pretty good job of avoiding these situations for years. The last revision of this type i had was about 5 years ago when my 5 year old cousin ran up out of nowhere, grabbed my arm and squeezed. Somethings you just can't control, even when you try.
My dialysis access has been brokenated. Right now my arm hurts - a lot. I went to the emergency room late Friday night, where I waited three hours for them to tell me to call a vascular surgeon on Monday. "But," said me, "I have dialysis Monday morning, and I can't dialyse if it's not working."
paraphrase of the ER doctor: "Tough titties, kid. Call a doctor in 3 days."
Yeah I know, it's not immediately life threatening. If I don't dialyse, however, I die, and I can't dialyse while the access is broken. It's a crappy situation, especially considering that it could have been avoided if I'd complained more, or if the tech had been more willing to listen to the advice i was giving. Instead I get to go through the thrill of surgery, which may or may not fix my arm. I may end up with a central line, a sexy catheter jutting out of a vein in my neck or chest, while I wait for my old dialysis access to heal, or from a new dialysis access to become useable.
Things like this are bound to happen, I suppose, but I've done a pretty good job of avoiding these situations for years. The last revision of this type i had was about 5 years ago when my 5 year old cousin ran up out of nowhere, grabbed my arm and squeezed. Somethings you just can't control, even when you try.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
prockgirlscout:
I'll be thinking about you this week, and trying to not get distracted by how retarded our medical system is.
toothpickmoe:
Yeah, _Tab pretty much took the cake on this one.