u/tuesdayreyn

I was advosed to get some protein bars by my center as I'm not gettijg enough in my diet. They gave me a sample of a Jimmy bar. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever had, but is there anything you folks like better? Need something lower in carbs and sugar as I'm also a diabetic.

It happened. I got cramps today. I've had mild cramping before, but not massive cramps. I had an extra dialysis session today due to being over loaded with fluid. It was almost over, like 10 minutes left. I thought I could wait it out, until it really hit me. I've never been shot but that's what I'd compare it it. It was the worst thing I've felt next to child birth. I was screaming and crying and making a fool of myself. I actually threw up a little. They put me on oxygen because I was hyperventilating. Then, it was over as quick as it began.

My husband has been in the US since he was an infant. I'm not sure what path he rook to get it, but be received his permanent resident card (green card) 13 years ago, a few years before we started dating. I'm a US citizen and we have a child who's also a citizen. He's always worked, often 2 jobs and we've never been on assistance. I got medicaid before we got married, but he's never got benefits. Recently, I was diagnosed with end stage renal disease. I've not been able to work and I'm applying for SSDI. He was working 2 jobs to keep us afloat. Last month, he got into an accident and had to take unpaid time off work. His full time job has let him come back to work, but his part time job hasn't. We also got really behind on bills while he was off. Our credit cards are nearly maxed out just keeping the electricity on and food in the house. The ends are just not meeting right now. I'm looking for work, but I'm really sick and have dialysis 3x a week and it affects my availability for work. We've thought of applying for foodstamps to help, but I'm not sure if that could hurt him.

Ok, that was kind of click bait. I'd rather not be doing this, none of us want to be doing this, obviously. If you look at my post history, I've had some issues. But since this is reality and this is how I'm alive to be with my child for however long I have left, I'm trying to see the positive. I do in center hemo 3x a week. I was just thinking, that sure it's inconvenient to give up nearly 15 hours a week, but also it's like I get nearly 15 hours a week to myself. I curl up in a somewhat comfy recliner and nap, watch shows on my phone, or read for 4 hours, largely without interruption. No one needs me to do anything but sit still in this chair, and even if they did, tough luck I'm in the chair the next 4 hours hours regardless. Before I got sick, I had no time for stuff like that. I've read five books since starting treatments, more than I've read all year. I've developed a routine. The diet is hard, but I've found that I can stop for a McDonald's hashbrown and a coffee on the way to dialysis and the machine will suck the potassium right out. It's how I stick to the diet the rest of the week, knowing I'm going to get a lil treat on treatment days. Maybe I can't get away with that forever, but for now I can. My labs are good because I work hard on the diet the rest of the week. There's a few people who start around the same rime as me and we meet up in the waiting room and laugh and joke every morning bedore chair time. I have a favorite tech who's really funny and it's always a pleasure when I get her. I wish I wasn't sick. I miss my old life. The freedom I had. I hate worrying about what could happen. But while I'm here and it is what it is, I'm finding light in the ways I can.

TLDR: center forgot me in waiting area, delaying treatment and made me sign papers saying I refused treatment.

I need your thoughts on what happened at dialysis yesterday. My chair time is 7:25 am. My husband pulled up to the front doors to let me out at 7:15. I glanced at the dash clock as I got out, so I know the time. I followed another patient into the office. At my center, there's a waiting room you walk into that has a receptionist desk, but there's never anyone there in the mornings when I go in. There's restrooms you can access and another door that leads to the treatment area. That door is locked with a key pad lock. Staff has to let you in. There is a doorbell outside the door to ring to let them know you've arrived. The other patient I walked in with rang the bell and we sat down. There was already another patient waiting, someone who has an earlier time than me. A few minutes go by and they come and call the person who was already waiting and the patient I came in with. I'm still waiting. It's 15 minutes past my time and I am still waiting. I don't think too much of it, because they've ran 10-15 minutes behind before and the patient who was in the waiting room when I arrived was also waiting past his time too. At 35 minutes past I rang the doorbell. No one ever came. Ten minutes later, another patient came and rang the bell. She usually starts after me, but was running later. 15 more minutes and no one comes. Finally, we see a staff member coming in to work. He does some thing administative. He's not a nurse or tech, but says he'll let them know we're waiting and goes back. 15 more minutes pass and the nurse finally comes. She seems surprised to see me and says she thought I wasn't coming. I've never missed dialysis. I'm always 20 minutes early, only two times I've been just 10 minutes early, and I've never been late. Anyway, my catheter is acting up and they have to administer blood thinners and wait for them to work. In all, it was 2 hours past my start time before I got on the machine. I askdd my nurse what happens now, if I could stay over or what. I was told only of they had extra space and didn't need the chair. Eventually, it was pieced together that my assigned tech said he checked the waiting area at 7:20 and didn't see me, marked me as a no show, and went on break. I was for sure there at 7:20. When I finally met the tech, he was someone I'd never met. He also didn't know the nurse by name. Last week one of the usual techs on my days mentioned she'd be going on vacation, so I think he was a floater from another location sent to fill in. I've met a couple who pop in to help one day then I never see them again. I am a woman, but I have a masculine first name. Think along the lines of Stevie. It's happened several times in my life that someone has saw my name and expected a man. I suspect that's what happened here. He saw my name, didn't know what I looked like, and checked the lobby for a man, didn't see one and went about his day. To make it worse, my daughter cracked a tooth. I booked her an urgent dental appointment late in the afternoon thinking it wouldn't interfere with treatment. I couldn't have stayed the whole 4 hours even if they had the space. They had me sign a paper saying I was refusing my whole treatment ama. That rubbed me the wrong way. I was on time. I wasn't refusing treatment. I arranged my schedule to be able to do my whole treatment, had it started on time, with a buffer to accommodate any unexpected delays. I just couldn't account for their mess up. The center seemed short staffed and more chaotic than normal that day too. I've heard refusing treatments can be a reason to deny transplant, so I hope this doesn't affect me too negatively. To top it off I think the nurse or admin repremanded the tech because he was not nice to me at all when he came to take me off the machine, being short and yanning on my lines.

I started dialysis earlier thia month. I'm covered by my husband's health insurance. Well, he injured his finger and his employer won't let him go back because he can't safely do his job (forklift operator) and they won't let him work in another role that doesn't involve the forklift. He's two montbs shy of having worked long enough to qualify for FMLA. The absences are just counting against his attendance. When he reaches the maximum number of absences he'll be fired. That should happen next week. When this happens, i will no longer have insurance and my last name isn't Rockefeller so there's no way I can pay out of pocket. I will be discharged from my dualysis center. I sat up last night applying for medicaid, but I'm not hopeful. We applied twice last year and were denied both times, even just for our child. Even if he found another job with insurance immediately, there's usually a 30 day waiting period for it to kick in. His hand is still injured ao I don't even know how he's going to find another job right away anyway. I've sat up crying all night from stress. Can anyone tell me any ideas of what to do?

I'm just generally confused about what's happening in this video. How do the scenes go together and wrf is Tom even doing in a midevil knight costume? Maybe I just don't get the vision. Someone explain it me. Love the song though.

What's your best hygiene tips with a catheter? I was just told don't shower or you'll die basically. I've basically been taking sponge baths in the sink, but I feel disgusting. It's summer where I am. I cut open a plastic zjplock bag and taped it over the dressing and used a hand held shower head to avoid spraying water directly pn the area and risked it once because I felt so nasty. The dressing didn't get wet as far as I could tell, but rhe nurses at the dialysis center acted like I'd just played Russian roulette with only one empty chamber with the risk I took. I don't have the option of a sit down bath where I live and moving isn't an option since I've not been able to work since getting sick and I'm holding on to this place by the skin of my teeth. What do you do? I feel like I can't leave my house because I'm dirty and it's taking a tole on my mental health. Making me wonder if it's even worth going through all this to stay alive if my life just consists of sitting at home too embarassed to leave and going to dialysis. To top it off, I have to try and go back to work and hygiene is very important in the industry I work in. I've seen coworkers written up and even one fired over poor hygiene in the past. I don't qualify for SSDI or SSI and my husband is working himself to death trying to keep us housed so not workinf isn't an option.

Forgive me if I didn't use the correct flair. I know notbing about this process. I was recently diagnosed with End Stage Renal Disease. I'm on hemodialysis 3x a week and have begun the lengthy process of being evaluated for a kidney transplant. The effects of my disease and the treatments have made it impossible to work. I know ESRD technically qualifies me for disability, but I'm not sure if there's any benefit in me applying.

I stopped working full time almost 10 years ago. I got an injury to my leg that left me temporarily unable to walk for several months. As a result I lost my job. As soon as I was good to go and started working again, my birth control failed and I fell pregnant. It was very complicated and led to multiple hospitalizations and an early delivery. I was working for a temp agency at the time so I didn't really have any job protections. I ended up staying home with my daughter until she was 3 (she's nearly 8 now) taking on short term part time work occasionally. I've consistently been working part time for the last 6 years, but it's been like 2 days a week. I had to stop working in February this year due to an eye surgery which temporarily left me unable to see. I was supposed to go back to work, but ended up in the ER unable to breathe at the beginniikonng of summer. That's when it was discovered that my kidneys were done for.

I don't believe I have the work history to qualify for SSDI. I am married and my husband works, bringing home $3k a month. It's my understanding that I won't qualify for payments under SSI either because he earns too much even though it's not nearly enough for a family of 3 to survive on.

I'd consider divorce if it would help my family's financial situation, but then I'd loose access to his employer's health insurance and thus my dualysis. If there's a gap in treatments, I could end up very sick or even loose my shot at a transplant. Is there even a point in applying?

Right now, I do hemo at the center through a catheter in my chest. My brother in law does PD at home. I'm still exploring my options going forward, but what he does seems more manageable than what I'm doing. The only issue is I have 3 cats. He says it's not advisable to have pets indoors and do PD. He actually advised me to get rid of them when I started dialysis due to infection risk. I can't. I have a daughter who's 7. She's already had to give up so much because I'm sick. Her dad has to work constantly because I can't work. I'm a pretty absent mom because all I've had the strength to do is lay on the couch the last couple months. She spends a lot of time in her room playing alone now. We have to rearrange outings and she can't have driends over due to me being sick. Our vacation that she was looking forward to all summer was canceled because I ended up in the hospital with fluid overload and got this stupid thing put in my chest and had to start treatment the weekend we were supposed to leave. I can't ask her to give up her pets too. Two of our cats are young and might realistically outlive me.

Has anyone successfully done PD and kept their cats?

Why am I so itchy? I am so itchy in spots that I want to scrub my skin with sandpaper. My phosphorus levels are good according to my latest labs. Even when they were sky high before starting dialysis, I didn't itch like this. Any solutions or tricks you've found helpful?

Hi again. This might be a dumb question. Today was my first day of dialysis at the center. I've only had it in hospital until now. They placed a catheter in my chest last week. In the hospital, they wrapped the ends in gauze and tape after dialysis. At the ceneter they did not. I was on the phone with my child's babysitter as she was wrapping up and I didn't even notice that they didn't wrap the ends until I got home. Is this ok or am I going to get an infection?

Tomorrow is my first day of treatment in the center. My previous sessions were in the hospital. I was pretty sick and they took my entire hospital bed to the dialysis area so I was laying in bed the whole time. I just remember being cold. Any advice on what to bring? What not to bring? I bought a throw blanket to bring because it's going to be freezing I already know. I slept in the hospital, but the center made me sign something saying it's my responsibility to stay awake and alert. I'll have my phone, but any other advice on staying awake? I also signed a document saying I understand food is not pemitted. Should I eat before or will I get sick? Bring water?

Hi. I'm pretty new. Went into the hospital for fluid overload on Monday

Got a dialysis catheter and had my first dialysis treatments in the hospital and was released yesterday. I start at rhe dualysis center Saturday. My kidneys have been in trouble for a while and I've been hospitalized several times this year with fluid overload. In the past, it's been treated with IV lasics in the hospital and pills at home. It's not cutting it anymore. Because my kidneys were going bad, I've already made big changes to my diet. I've cut out high potassium foods. I've cut out dark soda, sticking with iced tea, water, and Sprite Zero. I've cut added salt as much as I can. But now I guess I have to get stricter.

I don't know know what to eat. They sent me home with a generic pamphlet all about the vast and exciting food choices still available to me with fun recipes. But honestly it all sounds like crap. Maybe I'm having a bad attitude because it feels like my life is ending but not really it's just like being sent to prison but with needles. I'm just so angry.

I've looked over the list of foods. It honestly looks like they expext me cook multiple from scratch multiple times a day, plus prepping, dishes, kitchen cleanup, and shopping for fresh ingredients. I'm exhausted and I don't expect that to get any better when I have to spend what amounts to a second job's worth of time hopked to a dialysis machine each week on top of everything else i still have to do each week. It was the first day out of rhe hospital and all I've eaten today is a salad from a pizza place. I got pizza for the family because I couldn't go to the store, cook, and clean up after. Turns out the salad was an awful choice because it contained bacon, tomato, spinach, cheese and ranch dressing.

So what do you do when you just want to open the fridge or pantry and have a quick lunch or snack? I used to keep sandwich and salad stuff on hand, but I can't have that anymore. The dietician actually suggested an easy breakfast of a white bagel and fresh fruit. Kidney friendly, sure. But I'm also a type 1 diabetic and eating that would send my blood sugar into the stratosphere.

I'm just so mad and frustrated right now. Everything that seems healthy for diabetes like a turkey sandwich on whole wheat topped with fresh tomato and lettuce or a handful of almonds and cheese with fruit is death on a dialysis diet. It seems like all I have are high carb or require cooking and cleaning up after an entire recipie which feels impossible right now.