Certified.....

Both hubby and I are now officially certified for home dialysis.  I went 3 days, he 4, and Babygirl daily for all, since we got to do all of our practicing on her.  We accomplished several things.

Most important, our daughter has begun to distinguish the fear of pain from the pain itself.  This is important.  Extremely important.  And she has been given some sense of control over the entire process.  I cannot thank the dialysis team enough for this.

Second, hubby and I have also been given back a sense of control.  They have listened to everything from scheduling issues ("Do we HAVE to bring her back on the very first day of middle school???") to concerns about our competency to handle all of this at home.

Third, they made us clean our house.  Due to painting and shifting for our daughter's new room, the rest of the house got, well, um, disgusting.  Yesterday, at the end of our day, the nurse told us that she and the social worker would be following hubby home the next day to inspect Babygirls room - you  know, check out the electric supply and make sure we were ready to go.

Well.  I know from our adoption social workers that they know we are going to freak out and clean, so on top of 8 hours of driving and dialysis training, we took the whole house apart, taking time to grill a couple of steaks and steam some broccoli, since they are concerned about her protein intake.  But as one of our adoption social workers told me, "You can't fix filthy in 24 hours."  She was, of course, correct.  And we aren't filthy.  But the road in front of our house is under construction and every time I wipe anything with a damp cloth I get mud!  So hubby and I and Babygirl and nephew (well, him a little anyway) went to work.  And worked and worked.

So today, I am exhausted.  I had to work.  Hubby had to do the last day of training alone, and deal with the home visit, which went well.

We bought KFC for dinner.  Sometimes it's all you can do.  Coleslaw is a veggie, right?


DeeDee