Always telling the story
Just as I thought we were getting over the rollercoaster of the viral load being or not being undetectable and the change in my antiretrovirals to treat the HIV, there was another lurch in my medical treatment. Last Wednesday, I attended my usual dialysis clinic as normal. Except that nothing was normal. I think we … Read more
I have never really been one for gardening. Even when I was growing up, I think the most successful planting I ever did was of some cress in school. And I think that only worked because everyone else’s did as well. So you can imagine my surprise that in the last month I have been … Read more
All haemodialysis machines have tubes that take blood away from the body of the patient and tubes that return the blood after it has been cleaned. For ease of identification, many machines clearly mark these as red (from the body (or arterial)) and blue (return to the body (or venous)). It’s a simple way to … Read more
By days, weeks, months, and years, kidney dialysis patients learn to live with their thrice-weekly life-saving dialysis treatment. The alternative of not having treatment at all is much worse. Most of us still want to live; so, in order that we might continue to do so, we travel from our home to our dialysis unit … Read more
Earlier this week I received my EU Digital Covid Certificate in the post from the HSE. I wondered at the time was there a way of registering it on my phone. Fortunately there is. The Irish Covid-19 tracker app has been updated to allow users to scan their QR code on their Digital Covid Certificate … Read more
So, on Friday, I had created a table for recording particular stats whilst on dialysis. Then a friend suggested that I use a bullet journal to make things easier, so I have done that. I then realised that I had a blank page to the left of my table, and so have used that to … Read more
Dialysis, like much of healthcare, is all about numbers. The numbers may be examined on a yearly, quarterly, monthly, or weekly basis. Some are checked hourly during each dialysis session. Usually, these hourly numbers are registered and checked by the computer system and logged that way. However, since the attack on the HSE computer system … Read more