Tuesday, July 2, 2019 – Hot and Muggy Rest Day, then Fistula Problems

Had a fabulous night sleep last night despite it only going down to 70 degrees with high humidity. Got up and fed the horses just before some heavy thunderstorms came in, clinching my decision not to ride today. Once the rain eventually moved off, I put the portable electric fence up so the horses would have more room to move around, and to get them off what was quickly becoming a quagmire around the highline. By 1:00, we decided to start dialyzing so we could finish early. It became so hot and humid once the sun came out, we were compelled to run the generator in order to use the air-conditioning. We’ve been wanting to experiment anyway, to see just how much propane we use when we’re running the generator, especially when we have a heavy draw like the A/C. Anyway, I started getting Hubby ready for dialysis, but when I first tried to cannulate him (stick him with a needle with a tube so we can connect him to the machine), I got a very poor result. I tried several times, even completely resetting the entire machine up a second time, but everything worked against me, and eventually I realized that his fistula was too blocked up to dialyze him at all, darn it! We had just had his fistula cleaned out in Florida in April, and it was supposed to last at least six months, but I suspect that since Hubby’s blood pressure is typically so low that may be contributing to the problem, but I’m just guessing. Anyway, I spent the rest of the afternoon solving that problem, getting in touch with the nearest Fresenius, who then contacted their resident nephrologist, who arranged for us to go into the St. Joe hospital in Lexington for a fistual declot. Our current clinic got them all the records they needed, and by 4:30, we had an appointment for 11:00 tomorrow morning. Disappointing that this happened, but we expect we’re going to cope with a lot of medical stuff on the road. Kudos to Fresenius, though, for handing this with such efficiency and aplomb, everyone was quite helpful and cheerful in that help, even though it undoubtedly kept them working past their regular hours. We settled down for the evening and went to be early, since we’ll need to get up fairly early tomorrow to drive the 90 minutes or so to Lexington.