Sunday, June 19, 2011

June 19, 2011



Life has thrown DeWayne and I a huge curve ball the last few months. DeWayne lost his job the third week of March. The following week we found out that his kidney function was down to 10% and he was going to have to have dialysis access. DeWayne had a kidney transplant eleven years and 8 months ago. It is failing now. Well, it's been failing for about nine years. The doctors at UAB hospital expected DeWayne to go back on dialysis before now. So, the following week he had a catheter placed into his peritoneum so he would be able to do dialysis at home. This was his preferred method of doing dialysis as opposed to going to the center three days a week. Most of those treatments are between 3-4 hours long. With the peritoneal dialysis, he could do that at night while he slept. Usually it takes those catheters a month to heal. For whatever reason, DeWayne's took two months to heal to be able to use. So, the last week of May we started training on doing the peritoneal dialysis at home. The process is you have the fluid drain in, let it dwell for a while, then you drain it out. When it drains out, it brings out all the toxins in your body that your kidneys can't filter out now that they're not working any longer. The first day, it worked fine. The next day....it didn't. So, on June 2nd DeWayne went back to surgery to see if they could manipulate the tube and see why it seemed to be obstructed. When the surgeon was done, he came out and talked to me. He said the transplanted kidney was laying on top of the tip of the catheter. So, he pulled back on the catheter and placed it on top of the transplant. He had to let those incisions heal for about a week before they could try to dialysis again. Well, once again the first day it worked fine...the second it didn't. So, on June 15th, he went back to surgery once again to find out what the problem was. They put nearly a liter of saline in and only 200 ml(approximately 6 ounces) came out. So,the surgeon replaced the tube. So, now we're off to waiting for another month(hopefully) to see if it will heal and work. They're not holding out too much hope at this point. It's looking like he might have to end up doing the dialysis at the center after all.

We have definitely learned in the last few months patience and taking each day at a time.