Babygirl's last home dialysis was the Thursday before the transplant, June 8. One of the most exciting things about getting a transplant is saying goodbye to all of that.
Except....all of the stuff is still here. The machine, the recliner, and thousands of pieces of miscellaneous supplies: IV bags of saline, emergency supplies of dialysate. Needles, syringes, blood tubes. Dialysis machine cartridges. Bandages. Chux. Bottles of blood thinners. IV tubing. The medical iPad. A centrifuge. This stuff was taking up 3 closets, and all the space under the spare bedroom bed, and more besides.
The dialysis team is coming to pick up the machine. Maybe the centrifuge. Probably the iPad. But all the rest, including the massive ugly hospital-style recliner? They were ALL "Prescription Items" and are ours to keep. But tell me what the living heck are we supposed to do with anything but the bandaids?
I woke up this morning feeling fine, but within an hour I was tossing my breakfast, so I called in sick. In between bouts of nausea, I helped Babygirl start dealing with it all. Eight extra large trash bags land dozens of broken-down boxes later, we (mostly she, honestly) had the vast majority of the things that we can dispose of, disposed of. We quite literally filled our oversized bathtub several times over with bags full of one type of fluid or another. We had to cut each one open, drain it, and stuff the remains into one of the endless trash bags. Decisions about whether huge packages of wrapped, capped needles and syringes needed to go into sharps containers or direct to trash.
It is so incredibly wasteful These are supplies that are sealed in impossible to open packaging in sealed boxes with labels attached. But they can't be returned so someone else can use them. I am certain that we sent thousands of dollars down the literal drain.
We had to run out for extra trash bags. And since Babygirl's doctors STILL have her on a 10-pound weight restriction (over what for her were some pretty strenuous objections), I got a work out hauling the bags and boxes down the stairs and out to the side of the house to await trash night. It's an impressive pile.
As for Babygirl herself, she is doing well. She still tires faster than I'd like, but much less so than before the transplant. Her creatinine is down to 1.2, which is gradually approaching normal. She is still significantly anemic. Her acid levels are creeping up to uncomfortably high levels, and her blood pressure is high. All of these things are manageable, but are definitely keeping her from moving from twice-weekly labs to weekly ones. We remain on biweekly visits to Rochester.
I spent some time today trying to recall how all this was handled last time. I don't remember what happened to what must have been a similar amount of unused stuff, but I don't remember getting rid of it all. I do remember taking biweekly trips to Philadelphia for what seemed like a very long time, but without so much blood work in between. Different team. Different kidney. Different approach. Different life.
DeeDee
