Hey everyone! It has been awhile since I have posted a blog post. Summer has been busy, and using an iPad with touchscreen isn't very "arthritis" friendly! For this blog post I'm just going to touch base on what has been going on since my last post. I hope you enjoy!
I have been having some awful symptoms of some sort of auto immune disease. My symptoms mostly show in my blood work (extremely high inflammatory markers, extremely low hemoglobin, and non reactive anemia. I am not reacting to any of the meds or blood transfusions for my anemia.) Aside from those symptoms, I have severe pain in my knees, lower back, and hips. I have seen a Rheumatologist and she's sent me for loads of blood work, x-rays, a bone density scan, and a possible MRI. We have no idea what is going on there, but hopefully something comes from all of these tests. With my hemoglobin being so low, I have been so exhausted and I keep getting headaches. I did my last set of labs last week and got them back today. My blood count has dropped from 8.5 to 8.1. It's not a huge dip, but enough that I can feel it in my body. It's been a bit rough walking around with such a low blood count this summer. The heat effects me more, and I have been so very busy this Summer!
I had to have a procedure done on my dialysis access last month which didn't go as smoothly as it normally does. The procedure I have to go for once a month is called an Angioplasty. What they do for this is put a needle in the bottom of my dialysis access, and run a wire all the way through my access. They inject dye in my access and search for any type of narrowings along my graft. Once they have located the narrowing, they insert a balloon to the area of the narrowing and blow up the balloon to kind of expand the access. Normally I have this done with no problems, however, this last time was just terrible. Somehow, and I'm not sure how, they ended up infiltrating my entire access. Whatever they did caused my entire arm to swell twice the size, and bruise more than I have ever bruised before. It was so painful I ended up having to skip a couple dialysis treatments to let my arm have a bit of a break. Thankfully it healed up with no further issues.
Dialysis wise everything has been going well. I haven't had any issues with putting my needles in or anything like that. August 19th was my 1 year anniversary on home hemodialysis! I have been telling anyone who will listen why home hemodialysis is so much better than in center. I have never felt better! Well, at least dialysis wise I haven't felt better.
This Summer has been so busy! I know the only reason I was able to do all of the things I did this Summer is because of my switch to home dialysis. My fiancé and I took the kids to the Jersey Shore in August, and I was able to spend all night Friday walking around the boardwalk, all day Saturday (about5-6 hours) in the ocean, jumping waves and swimming all day. Then all night Saturday walking around the boardwalk again! It felt so nice to be able to actually do things and not suffer for it.We then had a car show to attend which was a weekend long thing. A lot of walking on a lot of uneven ground, but I still did it, and I'm damn proud of myself for doing it. In one day I had 6,660 steps! If I would have done that while I was still doing in center dialysis, I would've needed to take a week of bed rest!
I know it has been quite some time since I've last written here, but I was originally using my iPad to write out my blog. Because of dialysis and the touchscreen it would cause pretty nasty cramps and arthritis pain in my hands. I was unable to blog for awhile. I just recently bought myself a laptop and I hope to continue writing more about my medical journey. My next post I have to have done will be my story. My entire health story. My experience with kidney disease, surgeries, dialysis, and all the other chronic illnesses that I have because of kidney disease and dialysis. This isn't a very informative post, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to let you all know that I will be getting back into blogging about what I know pertaining to chronic illness. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me during this, and thank you to all my new readers! Please leave a comment and let me know what you want to hear or if you have any questions for me.
I'm going to get started on my next post ASAP so keep a look out!
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