How easy it is for a year to fly by and without a blog post in almost 11 months. As dialysis has become such a normal part of my world and my kidney disease about as scary as clipping my fingernails, I have less and less to say about it and the overall experience. I suppose I wish there was some great news to share like I'm on my way to the hospital for a new kidney, but realistically its only been two years on dialysis. Here in Massachusetts it takes three to six years before you receive a cadaver kidney so I've got a minimum of one year and more like two to four more years of dialysis before my name creeps to the top of the list.
I remain generally healthy. I am now a full year in on my twice a week treatments as opposed to three times per week. My quality of life greatly improved with only going twice per week and my general health seemed to increase as well. dialysis is wearying. Who wouldn't want to go less than three times per week. In fact I recently asked my nephrologist if we could try something else new.
I asked her if we could try three times per two weeks on a schedule of Monday, Friday of week one and Wednesday of week two. She had to sit down and wipe the sweat from her brow at the very thought. In her mind like most humans time passes by in seven day cycles. To her the second week would mean only one dialysis session in a week. The thought made her nervous. For me time is linear and continuously moving forward. So I only see a pattern of dialysis, then three days off, then dialysis, then four days off, then dialysis, then four days off and the pattern repeats. In her version, one dialysis session in week two sounds like a big deal, but in the end its still only 4 days between sessions as opposed to the three days I go through now.
I'm still working on that with her, but there's a bigger problem than just convincing her. The dialysis clinic in the end is in the business to make money. That I don't go on Wednesdays anymore is already costing them money. It's not like they can fill my spot on Wednesday, nobody goes once a week. imagine if I threw this wacky schedule into the mix of not showing up on Wednesdays of week one and then only showing up Wednesdays of week two. They would essentially be earning the income of minus one patient each month relative to their full capacity. So they will never allow this. Perhaps they would have a year ago when I was only one of two or three regular patients on the third shift, but over the past year another local clinic closed and our clinic picked up many new patients and has a full plate of regulars. So I would almost need to find a struggling center and start going there.
Then there's the whole insurance industry to deal with. I've been told they would never pay for my dialysis unless I went at least twice a week. This sounds a little odd to me since my schedule of three times every two weeks would mean less cost to them. But that is a bridge I'll need to cross if and when I convince my nephrologist to go along with this new schedule and then also find a local enough clinic to take me on as a patient.
My name is Bil... and I have kidney disease (not that you care)
