Dialysis
I desperately want this catheter out of my chest, but the Doc says my fistula has to be able to support the larger 16 ga. needles for 2 weeks before we can talk about that. On Tuesday, I started with the 16 ga. needles and there were no problems. Thursday, I went through the whole treatment with 16 ga. When the machine started beeping to tell me that the treatment was over, I tried to get the recliner to an upright position and I felt like there were mini explosions going off in my arm. My vein ballooned up and I was in incredible pain.
I wanted the needles out right then and there, but they need to return the blood that's inside the machine. They take the Arterial tube from my arm and connect it to a bag of saline. The saline pushes the blood through the pump, filter, and back into the venous line into my arm. Since my venous line was now blocked, they had to switch the tubes, they disconnected the venous and attached it to the Saline. The fluid then returned to my body through the Arterial line.
That'll teach me...
