My life in rehab
A few weeks ago I found myself testing the US medical system-- again. It had been seven years since I underwent quadruple bypass surgery at the best heart center in the US. Unfortunately that experience had left me with an ejection fraction of 15% barely adequate to pump the heart. During the past seven years, three doctors had managed to skillfully redesign my life to a relative health. But now I was back again having fallen off the strict regime which had upset the chemical balance of my body.
After the hospital stay it was decided that I needed dialysis to rid my body of all the toxins that were slowly damaging my body. You need dialysis when you develop end stage kidney failure --usually by the time you lose about 85 to 90 percent of your kidney function. When your kidneys fail, dialysis keeps your body in balance by: removing waste, salt and extra water to prevent them from building up in the body, keeping a safe level of certain chemicals in your blood, such as potassium, sodium and bicarbonate, and helping to control blood pressure.
Chronic kidney disease and GFR - glomerular filtration rate is the best test to measure your level of kidney function and determine your stage of kidney disease. Your doctor can calculate it from the results of your blood creatinine test, your age, body size and gender. The earlier kidney disease is detected, the better the chance of slowing or stopping its progression. One in 10 American adults, more than 20 million, have some level of CKD.
Actually some kinds of acute kidney failure do get better after treatment. In some cases of acute kidney failure, dialysis may only be needed for a short time until the kidneys recover. Dialysis can be done in a hospital, in a dialysis unit that is not part of a hospital, o r even at home.
I chose a rehab nursing home for the early days of my dialysis. And it was another learning experience. The dialysis machine is really a very simple machine which takes blood through one tube and returns it to your body through another. The machine itself does all the work of cleaning the blood and removing the toxins from the body. So you go in twice or thrice a week, are tied to one of these machines ,and after three hours you emerge with considerably cleaner blood. The hardest part is lying on a bed for three hours!
The collingwood facility I went to was clean, efficient and well run. There were a variety of patients there
....a CEO painfully learning to recognize what day of the week it was, A high school teacher determined to walk again, a grandmother surrounded constantly by her children and grandchildren, a lonely old man who cried at night..yes it was a varied mix of humanity...while management was mostly white, specialists were mostly Indian, daytime nurses were the local black, but night time nurses were tall strapping women from Africa- Somalia, Nigeria, Eritrea...an interesting mix indeed..
I learnt a lot....from how to walk, how to urinate lying down, getting up from comfortable sofas, and sleeping on beds surrounded by bars, being woken by a floating cast of nurses at all times of night and day and constant pricking by needles drawing blood....
But after ten days I was ready to go home!
After ten days I was ready to go home...
Sent from my iPad mini
A few weeks ago I found myself testing the US medical system-- again. It had been seven years since I underwent quadruple bypass surgery at the best heart center in the US. Unfortunately that experience had left me with an ejection fraction of 15% barely adequate to pump the heart. During the past seven years, three doctors had managed to skillfully redesign my life to a relative health. But now I was back again having fallen off the strict regime which had upset the chemical balance of my body.
After the hospital stay it was decided that I needed dialysis to rid my body of all the toxins that were slowly damaging my body. You need dialysis when you develop end stage kidney failure --usually by the time you lose about 85 to 90 percent of your kidney function. When your kidneys fail, dialysis keeps your body in balance by: removing waste, salt and extra water to prevent them from building up in the body, keeping a safe level of certain chemicals in your blood, such as potassium, sodium and bicarbonate, and helping to control blood pressure.
Chronic kidney disease and GFR - glomerular filtration rate is the best test to measure your level of kidney function and determine your stage of kidney disease. Your doctor can calculate it from the results of your blood creatinine test, your age, body size and gender. The earlier kidney disease is detected, the better the chance of slowing or stopping its progression. One in 10 American adults, more than 20 million, have some level of CKD.
Actually some kinds of acute kidney failure do get better after treatment. In some cases of acute kidney failure, dialysis may only be needed for a short time until the kidneys recover. Dialysis can be done in a hospital, in a dialysis unit that is not part of a hospital, o r even at home.
I chose a rehab nursing home for the early days of my dialysis. And it was another learning experience. The dialysis machine is really a very simple machine which takes blood through one tube and returns it to your body through another. The machine itself does all the work of cleaning the blood and removing the toxins from the body. So you go in twice or thrice a week, are tied to one of these machines ,and after three hours you emerge with considerably cleaner blood. The hardest part is lying on a bed for three hours!
The collingwood facility I went to was clean, efficient and well run. There were a variety of patients there
....a CEO painfully learning to recognize what day of the week it was, A high school teacher determined to walk again, a grandmother surrounded constantly by her children and grandchildren, a lonely old man who cried at night..yes it was a varied mix of humanity...while management was mostly white, specialists were mostly Indian, daytime nurses were the local black, but night time nurses were tall strapping women from Africa- Somalia, Nigeria, Eritrea...an interesting mix indeed..
I learnt a lot....from how to walk, how to urinate lying down, getting up from comfortable sofas, and sleeping on beds surrounded by bars, being woken by a floating cast of nurses at all times of night and day and constant pricking by needles drawing blood....
But after ten days I was ready to go home!
After ten days I was ready to go home...
Sent from my iPad mini
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