Tuesday
El Milagro: I am arriving at the center about 15 to 20 minutes late, having gotten wrapped up in a short project that was actually a “longer-than-anticipated-project”. As I come in, Jo the Nurse reports that the new doc has already done his rounds and he asks her to ask about if I am “okay”. Well, I am. So I’m sure I’m the last person on board, and I find my chair by my name on the dialyzer, and Matt comes over to stick me. He does a quick slick stick and we figure to take off 3.1, putting me at my “dry weight”, 72.8. My beginning BP is about 115 over 70 something. Jo the Nurse comes up and listens to my body with her stethoscope while I’m talking to Matt about something innocuous. Since I have new batteries, I go off into brain land, listening to All Things Considered. With earphones it’s like the voices, music, and the whole radio studio is between my ears, echoing around in my vacuous head. I like that experience.
At 5:30 I switch mediums and watch ABC News and some of the daily news must be lullaby-ish because I drift off into delta-land for awhile, awakening for the last human-interest story. Then I pay attention to the local news; mostly about cars awash in creeks and the amount of rain we’ve received around town (2.5 inches at my house, which gives us a raging creek out back). This is a nice sound at night with the windows open.
About 30 minutes before the end of the session I start feeling clammy and “funny”. I wait a few minutes to see if the feeling fades and it gets woozier, so I call Matt over. He checks my BP and its 72 / 34, which is low enough for really funny feelings. Matt’s first strategy is to stop moving fluid to steady the BP. After a few minutes he takes it again and it is only up slightly. Then he decides to put some fluid back in and that doesn’t really work until he has added 200 cc’s three times, plus adding some sodium which finally brings my BP up to 108 over 60. While he is doing these adjustments I lie there with my eyes closed, wishing I could just take another nap. Jo the Nurse comes around to lend her expertise and approve Matt’s work. She asks if I have gained weight lately or am I eating more. Finally the BP is stabilized at around 110 and Matt is ready to de-cannulate me. He unhooks me and by the time I’m ready to leave, my BP is 114 standing and 111 sitting. So, over all those hours I actually only took off 1 Kg, and now we have to figure out if my dry weight should be raised or if the whole thing was just an anomaly. Now I have something to ask the doc about.
Oh, and BTW: My Bracketology is Pure Poop! Only one of my teams made it to the final 4. What a rotten year for my brackets! That's March Maddnes!
Notes: In at 75.9 and out at 74.9 Kgs.New Readers: For A Welcome Post, click August 2006 on the Sidebar.
1 comment:
About the "sodium"in my own opinion as a nurse, the tech says that he adjusted it because this sodium has something to do also to control your blood pressure.
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