Blood drops keep falling on my bed...

Well on the floor, actually. But that didn't rhyme with the song! Ha ha ha.

What happened was - this morning, when we (the tech and I) got up as the machine signaled that the treatment was done, we noticed that the bucket that is placed below the dialyser had blood in it. Well not a whole lot, but there was blood. Blood has this nasty habit of looking quite gross. The bucket usually has the saline that is used for priming the dialyser and tubes. Even a few drops of blood in that saline can look quite scary to the uninitiated.

The cap of the dialyser was probably not screwed on well enough. It probably was not in line with the threads. As a result blood kept slowly dripping out of the dialyser into the bucket. Drop by drop. Through the night.

My calculation based on my weight which I measure before and after a session was that I lost around 200 ml of blood.

There is actually a device called the Dri-sleeper which has a sensor that is connected to a beeper. Many people on nocturnal dialysis use two of these devices. One is taped onto the arm near the cannulation sites and one is placed below the dialyser. I have used this device for my arm in my early days on nocturnal when I used to ooze quite often from my cannulation sites. I have however, stopped oozing and hence, stopped using the device ever since I started tying my hand to avoid movement of the cannulated arm.

I have never used the device below the dialyser though. This kind of leak from the dialyser has happened only once before and at that time too, the quantity of blood lost was much less than that I lost last night.

I have found the device. I am going to try it out today by placing it below the dialyser.

Some might say - these kind of risks are not worth taking. Maybe you should reconsider nocturnal dialysis. I don't agree.

Nocturnal dialysis is what makes my life worth living. Yes, there are risks. But there are ways to minimize them. I can never imagine myself undergoing in-center again especially now that
I am used to daily nocturnal at home. Without panicking, I have to take adequate precautions so that these kinds of incidents don't repeat.

Comments

Bhanu said…
I wish NXstage will be offered in India soon. I guess by now there is enough demand...so I am kind of surprised why the latest machines and training is not yet available.
Vikram said…
Kamal, When is NxStage getting into India? Any idea?
Kamal D Shah said…
A few years at least. It has only recently been announced that NxStage will be going to the UK. It is currently being sold only in the US.

In India, there are hardly any people doing hemo at home. The market size probably does not make sense for them to come here, for now at least.