Year 12 of Dialysis

 I think that November 11 was the start of my twelfth year of dialysis. I've been back on hemodialysis during the afternoon shift, since April 2021 or so.  I have a new shunt on my left arm, I hope it keeps functioning without problems for the next year. I've become completely paranoid about listening for the distinctive "bruit" of the shunt.

The doctors keep telling me I am high on the list for a transplant, but no transplant seems to be in sight. I guess this has to do with the ongoing pandemic. So I've hunkered down and started to try to get through another long period of hemodialysis. So far, the side-effects of dialysis have been minimal: some loss of sensation in the chest, the development of breasts like a woman (just the left side!). Things could be a lot worse I guess.

The critical thing is to stay fit. I have a stationary bike at home and I do a lot of cycling, walking, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, and a bit of Shaolin Kung Fu. This combination seems to be good enough for keeping me reasonably fit.  I gave up the gym in 2020, and never looked back. I find that as far as building up muscle strength in my legs goes, Qi Gong is surprisingly helpful, especially Shaolin Qi Gong.

Year 11 of dialysis

 Year 11 of dialysis began on 11th Nov 2020. The last time I blogged about my dialysis, I had just switched to peritoneal dialysis. That was June 2020 or so. Things haven't worked out well with peritoneal. For one thing, I've lost sensation on my skin, a result of nerve damage following insufficiently effective dialysis (due to the peritoneal dialysis not working as well as it should or could). I can't feel anything on the skin near my solar phlexus, and along both trapezoid muscles. Also, my left foot's sole has gone numb, and the right foot's sole is starting to go number too.  Another thing that happened was this unexplained pain in the upper abdomen. The doctors did a lot of tests but found nothing.  The pain is simply there, and the only solution doctors have offered is strong opiods to kill the pain.  They seem completely uninterested in finding out why the pain occurs at all; in fact, my doctor  told me that he thinks the pain is psychological and that I don't really want to do peritoneal dialysis. Another problem is this feeling of fullness in the stomach, which is either also psychological or has some physiological basis, but the doctors are not really interested in why I have this problem.

The  doctor advised me to switch to hemodialysis, which of course requires a new dialysis shunt, this time on my left arm because the right arm has been used up (too many operations). So last week, I had the shunt operation.I will now have to wait six weeks before the shunt is mature enough to work. Until then, I have to just put up with the  pain and the feeling of fullness. A pretty unpleasant thing to be stuck with.

Initially, the idea was to keep me on peritoneal until I get a transplant. But now I will switch to hemo and wait for a transplant that way. The wait is expected to be another two years at least. Let's hope this second round with hemo is not as horrible as the first.