On Tuesday this week (17th Dec 2013) the plumber and electrician arrived to get the house ready for home dialysis.Then Thursday (19th Dec) my dialysis machine, water softener and reverse osmosis machine arrived. This is about 4 weeks behind the most recent schedule and promises we were given and this caused much stress as we'd booked time off over Christmas and expected to be home dialysing by now.
We were given a cast iron guarantee we would be dialysing at home by Christmas by several senior people - but that's not going to happen :( So we'll be at the hospital dialysing for 6 hours every other day over Christmas. The new plan is to be home by 6th Jan - lets hope this becomes a reality.
After several conversations and letters to hospital senior managers over the past month we've finally managed to get the kit delivered.
Next step is to set the equipment up and then take a water test. The test results will take a week so the sooner the test is taken the better. We're waiting for a technician to come and do the setup now. Providing the test comes back OK we can begin dialysing.
The water goes through 5 processes to get it clean. There is a particle filter, then a water softener, then a carbon filter to remove chlorine, then a reverse osmosis process and finally a special filter in the dialysis machine to get the water clinically sterile ready to go into my blood stream during dialysis.
It has felt like this day would never come - we originally were offered home dialysis in February 2013 and were accepted for home treatment in March. We were told it would be 2-3 months to setup. Well that 2-3 months has been a real journey with much frustration but 10 months later its actually beginning to feel like it might happen.
Home dialysis will make our lives so much simpler. Joy has done over 550 journeys to and from the hospital since she started training to needle me on dialysis in March! So a big time and petrol saving but that's just the start. Instead on being tied to specific days and time we will be free to dialyse whenever we like. So we can do extra shorter sessions and fit them around our busy lives. I will be free to work full days on Mon, Wed & Fri and this will help our income as we've been on half pay for the hours I've not been able to work. Also when I see Joy and Jake my kids I will actually get to see them for more of the time rather than spending some of my limited time with then down at the hospital without them. Becki has also been home alone a lot 3 days a week so she will be glad to have us around in the house with her more.
Roll on a better life in 2014 - can't wait to start using the machine.
Keep praying for a kidney transplant and for no more delays to home dialysis.
Thanks for reading and for your support.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
Rob & Joybelle
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