You know, it's funny: there are about seventy-nine things that could go wrong during a dialysis session. We're dealing with blood and needles here, so infection, haemorrhage, hypotension, needle in the eye...these are all par for the course. I had prepared for all these things, and was confident I could handle them should they arise. What I did not foresee was that the problems might not actually have anything to do with me, but the technology would fuck me over.
Until last Monday, this post was going to be entitled: "Home Dialysis is Super Rad Yeaaaaaaah" and would go on to list all the ways in which it has made my life crazy-awesome. But that was then. Move on. Now I find myself forced (out of ire) to vent about the fact that Dermot - whom I loved up until Monday - is being a bit of a dick.
On Monday afternoon, I had spent an hour assiduously preparing Dermot and was just about to insert my first needle, when he started alarming at me and shamelessly flashing his Spanner light. The Spanner light is the one that comes on when there is something indiscriminately wrong with the machine that requires the attention of a technician. The way to resolve it, as I found out after a frantic hour spent on the phone to nurse Dave at the unit and the out-of-hours tech, is to turn it off and on again. Standard. In theory its simple, but Dermot was completely lined, primed and raring to go, and to switch it off-and-on meant taking things apart before waiting, like, a kerjilion minutes, then putting them back again and getting very wet in the process.
The Spanner went away and I was able to get on with my session, albeit an hour later than intended. The on-off trick had worked...or so I thought. I arrived home yesterday around 5pm, still hungover from the night before (there was tequilla, and Jagerbombs - plural) and desperate to get on the machine. All was going well, until BAM - Dermy only goes and spanners me again. Unfortunately, it now being 6pm on a Sunday night, there was nobody to call to talk me through the procedure so I ended up turning Dermot off, stripping him down completely and starting from scratch. I finished at 10, exhausted, and collapsed into bed.
First thing today, I rang the techs and Richard was able to come out this afternoon to give Dermot the once over. After explaining the exact nature of the recent problems, Richard concluded that Derm was having trouble regulating his temperature and I could probably rectify it by leaving him to cool off between the initial heat clean and the pre-treatment priming. I duly did so before today's session; no Spanner. Dermot, my hero.
Then, what would you know, having got through my three hours, stripped, cleaned and tidied, my lovely machine started bleating at me once more. This time, the WRO (don't ask what it is, I couldn't really tell you) kept cutting out which meant the final self-clean was stop-starting and alarming every time it did so. It ruined University Challenge and my tuna salad. In a fit of pique, I turned Dermot off at the wall, but you can't keep a good man down and the battery reserve kicked in, so now he is in limbo with the heat disinfection button defiantly lit and 23 minutes left on the cycle. A call to the out-of-hours tech has come to nothing, so I'm going to straighten my hair, go to bed and hope I haven't done any irreparable damage. Dermot, don't do this to me - we've only just begun.
Until last Monday, this post was going to be entitled: "Home Dialysis is Super Rad Yeaaaaaaah" and would go on to list all the ways in which it has made my life crazy-awesome. But that was then. Move on. Now I find myself forced (out of ire) to vent about the fact that Dermot - whom I loved up until Monday - is being a bit of a dick.
On Monday afternoon, I had spent an hour assiduously preparing Dermot and was just about to insert my first needle, when he started alarming at me and shamelessly flashing his Spanner light. The Spanner light is the one that comes on when there is something indiscriminately wrong with the machine that requires the attention of a technician. The way to resolve it, as I found out after a frantic hour spent on the phone to nurse Dave at the unit and the out-of-hours tech, is to turn it off and on again. Standard. In theory its simple, but Dermot was completely lined, primed and raring to go, and to switch it off-and-on meant taking things apart before waiting, like, a kerjilion minutes, then putting them back again and getting very wet in the process.
The Spanner went away and I was able to get on with my session, albeit an hour later than intended. The on-off trick had worked...or so I thought. I arrived home yesterday around 5pm, still hungover from the night before (there was tequilla, and Jagerbombs - plural) and desperate to get on the machine. All was going well, until BAM - Dermy only goes and spanners me again. Unfortunately, it now being 6pm on a Sunday night, there was nobody to call to talk me through the procedure so I ended up turning Dermot off, stripping him down completely and starting from scratch. I finished at 10, exhausted, and collapsed into bed.
First thing today, I rang the techs and Richard was able to come out this afternoon to give Dermot the once over. After explaining the exact nature of the recent problems, Richard concluded that Derm was having trouble regulating his temperature and I could probably rectify it by leaving him to cool off between the initial heat clean and the pre-treatment priming. I duly did so before today's session; no Spanner. Dermot, my hero.
Then, what would you know, having got through my three hours, stripped, cleaned and tidied, my lovely machine started bleating at me once more. This time, the WRO (don't ask what it is, I couldn't really tell you) kept cutting out which meant the final self-clean was stop-starting and alarming every time it did so. It ruined University Challenge and my tuna salad. In a fit of pique, I turned Dermot off at the wall, but you can't keep a good man down and the battery reserve kicked in, so now he is in limbo with the heat disinfection button defiantly lit and 23 minutes left on the cycle. A call to the out-of-hours tech has come to nothing, so I'm going to straighten my hair, go to bed and hope I haven't done any irreparable damage. Dermot, don't do this to me - we've only just begun.
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