We arrived today at 12 noon but the nurse had already fed her for her 12 noon feed, so I felt a bit disappointed that we had missed out. Then we met a mum whose son is now 14 years-old but was born with kidney failure like Jasmine and had gone through dialysis and got a kidney at two years-old. She was lovely and encouraging, saying that we would get used to it and organise the medicines and dialysis around our lives.
After that the counsellor popped in but we were on our way to lunch, with Jasmine in the tri-cotti sling. We decided that lunch was our priority but we will see him at some point. For the time being though we are doing our best to eat and sleep well and that takes us a long way. Neil also made me walk up and down the tube and hospital stairs today as the first step (or 175 steps) back to fitness, after my operation.
We were just eating our lunch when Grandma and Grandpa Firth arrived. They had baked us a lovely Victoria Sponge Cake with fresh cream (my absolute favourite). Neil has just eaten a rather large slice whilst I am typing this and says he feels a bit sick. Greedy man, my slice was just the right size. Anyway, after that we went back to the room and fed Jasmine. We took her blood pressure and temperature and then we had to go off for training so Jasmine got cuddles from her Grandparents.
Today in PD training we learnt how to disconnect a patient from dialysis. I set up the dialysis machine and then connected the teddy and then disconnected him. Neil will practice this tomorrow. Having been through the whole cycle I feel more confident and less afraid of what dialysis means. The main message I took home today was to do the three minutes handwashes thoroughly, confidently perform the tasks in the same order so that you become comfortable and familar with the routine, making sure that you don’t rush or panic so that you don’t inadvertently touch anything you shouldn’t.
Jasmine isn’t growing as fast as they would like so tonight she will be put on a continuous feed over night. This means that she won’t have to wake for her feeds and she will take them all through her tube. In this way she will use up less calories, not vomit any feeds up, and finish all her feeds. They have also decreased the number of cycles she needs during dialysis. I can’t remember exactly why this helps, we did have it explained to us but have forgotten. We can ask again tomorrow.
What a great photo that is. Sorry I’ve not been in touch before, but quite simply, I didn’t know what to say or write, but we’ve been reading the blog avidly. Good to see you’ve kept your sense of humour and keep up the good work.
By the way, can I get one of those kits, food pipe one end, waste pipe the other and lying in bed all day!!