Robservations For July 29, 2021

This morning’s dialysis has changed my thoughts on my Robservations this week. I was going to write about kindness and respect and quit judging and condemning others that we know nothing about. All our journeys are very different. You know, the world is a much better place when we all get along. Pretty repetitive and pretty simple for me to write
But now I want to add how fragile life can be. I can’t get my dialysis to run this morn-ing. The pressures in my arterial line are very elevated and the machine will not run under that condition. It needs to be able to easily suck my blood out of my body. Two days ago we had a power outage as I was ready to hook up. That caused a couple hour delay but all was fine after that.
What happens if I don’t clean my blood? Well, lots of things from weakness to itchiness as the toxins build. Potassium is the main issue as high levels of it cause heart failure. Did you know that most dialysis patients die from a heart-related cause? We monitor our blood pressure very closely every day.
So I will try again in a couple hours. I have a cleaner in my lines and hope that helps. Sometimes the issue is dehydration and often it is stress which causes my chest to tighten.
Take care of yourselves. Any tiny change towards a healthy lifestyle is a great change to make. Reducing stress is a good thing also.