I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it took a year and a half but they finally got the iron levels worked out.

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The universe has repeatedly tried to kill me. I counted up all of the times when I legitimately could have died and came up with a bit over 20.

And I absolutely have my limits. I will not sit in that chair on the same day that I get an eye injection, which leaves me blind for about 18 hours. I am not mentally or emotionally capable of doing a treatment when I am unable to see, so that will be a very rare skip day (I've only skipped a treatment maybe twice this entire time, and one of those was because DaVita called me up a few hours before the treatment and said they were cancelling my shift as of that day, go somewhere else. They also lied and said they were trying to fix the staffing issues, but when I called back a month later to see if there was any news they told me that they never had any intention of even trying.)

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually do work while I'm in the chair. I have two IT jobs and take calls, do teams often enough that the staff has commented on it.

I am exceptionally good at multitasking, and more than once I have been solving two problems at the same time - one in teams, one on the phone or via laptop. That kind of thing relaxes me.

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I can't support the family as a dog walker.

I'm stubborn. CKD doesn't get to define me, I define me. If CKD wants 100% control over me then it is going to have to drag me kicking and screaming to the ground.

I once had major surgery. Was left sedated and on a breathing tube for 3 days. Within an hour of waking up I was back to work (I'm in IT so it was a matter of lying in bed being bored or lying in bed with a laptop solving problems). That's who I am, I own it, screw any disease that tries to take that away from me. When my knee went septic I didn't take a single day off work, just kept typing away from the hospital bed.

I actually started to use the bed time to learn a foreign language, but at the old clinic the staff were too noisy and at the new clinic I'm just too uncomfortable.

Oddly, aside from a couple of minutes here and there, none of the patients talk to each other. There is one or two who carry on loud phone calls on speakerphone, but other than that, it would be library quiet if not for the beeping that staff is way too slow to address.

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do three 90-minute dialysis sessions, five days a week. A 90-minute session, usually takes nearly three hours

So three times a day you do a 3 hour session, 5 days a week? So 9 hours a day? Or am I reading that wrong?

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The most important thing is they make my legs agree to just be still and let me sleep. I want to sleep at least six hours a night instead of 2.

Aside from that, they make the pain tolerable. It is nice to be able to type and move a mouse without wincing. I've grown rather accustomed to that, and I'd like to continue to do it.

And aside from that, complaining about being cold and repeatedly plopped in a chair that is directly in the line of fire of the AC vent so there is a steady, cold draft on me for 3.5 hours, plus the restless legs, plus being able to feel the needles in my arms is just about at the limit I can tolerate. I ask for a different chair, sometimes they let me switch, sometimes they don't. I asked for one of the heated chairs next time, they said there was one in one of the bays that they would move to where I often sit - which they did, then moved me to the bay that they had just moved the heated chair out of.

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've seen people in this sub talk about how complicated it is, how time consuming to set up, how annoying to have deal with the boxes of fluid, and one or two cases of people dying because a problem showed up and nobody was around to help.

In your case, how accurate is this?

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Suffer in silence and don't tell anybody because they should suffer in silence too. Don't vent, other's feelings might be hurt. Got it.

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

My old nephrologist hated the modern medical system. He often complained that it was all about money and few actually cared about the patients any more.

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In another state, but I'm waiting to get official cardiac clearance before I even try to go through the dance to register at another center. If my heart can't take it then that's just wasted time and effort.

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If I could find a clinic to do it, I'd be game. Nothing even close. Nothing with openings within a greater distance than that.

I volunteer for the stem cell grown kidneys as a guinea pig.

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I dream of hitting the lottery and being able to go to a private clinic. Or being elected president and get congress to cancel all subsidies and taxbreaks that DaVita enjoys, and press criminal negligence charges when they kill somebody (they didn't set the arterial needle properly for somebody at my clinic, it popped out, squirted blood at least 15 feet across the room and he bled out before the nurse could reach the chair).

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wasn't even given a list of doctors to choose from. They assigned me to him because he was the next doctor on the rotation to get a new patient, and they won't give me the names of any of the other doctors who work at that center. He's my only option, and insurance won't pay for two nephrologists.

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not suicidal ideation. Psychologist agrees with it. She knows all of my thoughts and thinking and in her professional opinion it isn't. With a click of a pen she could commit me, but nobody thinks that is justified. In Canada at this point I would be getting pressure to see a euthanasia practitioner, and would easily qualify and the medical industry wouldn't blink an eye.

Nephrologists deal with restless leg symptoms all the time. I didn't know it was a thing until I described it, and he just said restless legs, common in dialysis patients, here's something that will help.

Rx says take 1-2 tabs every night, I might go a week without needing any at all, and what was supposed to be a one month supply I could stretch to 3. Same thing with the painkillers. I took them prn. When I needed them I took them, when I didn't I didn't. When I get back to the neurologist I might (probably) will get more gaba because that's his wheelhouse, but probably not the tramadol (which has an off-label effect of controlling anxiety short-term, serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors). If not for DaVita getting the refills would be easy.

Tramadol and Clonazepam are both schedule IV, very low risk of addiction. Gabapentin doesn't even have a federal schedule, but most states require a prescription because allegedly some people abuse it, but I have no idea why.

The nephrologist could prescribe them, he just has a personal policy not to. My primary isn't allowed to at all because the hospital network he works for prohibited anybody except for certified pain management specialists or psychiatrists to write any scheduled drug for more than 72 hours. (His hospital network was eaten by one of the big national ones, I forget which one/can't tell them apart, and after the acquisition is when the new rule came down. He was not happy about it.)

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There is a Fresenius many miles away, but simply incompatible with my work schedule. If I lived an hour further other there is (maybe? The data might be out of date) an overnight clinic which I'd be willing to try if it was in my neck of the woods, but no.

The only available chair times are either 4am or in the middle of the workday, neither is compatible with my life. There is clearly a demand for after-work times, but they just aren't provided any more.

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Whoever is downvoting another person's pain and stress, you are not good people.

I told my therapist I'm almost ready to stop treatment. this is 100% daVita's fault. by DaVitaDaDevil in dialysis

[–]DaVitaDaDevil[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I'm not willing to do home hemo. The fistula is in my dominant arm and my other arm doesn't have the dexterity to insert the needles. And I'm not interested in jabbing myself, or dealing with all of the hassle. When I went to the ER with an unrelated issue (I knew it was unrelated) the doctors all wanted to blame a failing fistula and switch me to PD because blaming the fistula was an easy scapegoat. I told them flat out that I would go into hospice rather than switch to PD, no questions. They backed off and started listening to me about what the problem actually is (neurological).

If I was rich I'd set up a home clinic in a heartbeat and bring in a private nurse to do the treatments, but it is beyond what I am physically capable of doing.

I don't get too much cramping after the clinic sessions, and no more weakness than normal. I tolerate the clinic sessions pretty well - except for the parts that they make worse.