Dialysis Center

I spent some time this week at the dialysis center. One of the first thing that the RD really stressed to me is that dialysis is really a lifestyle. The patients have to arrange their whole lives around their dialysis. She compared it to having a part time job. The patients have to come in three times a week, for at least about 4 hours each time. All of the patients bring a bag of stuff with them, including blankets and pillows, and make themselves as comfortable as possible during the treatment. The whole staff knows each patient by name, and really try to make the environment as pleasant as possible. The RD said that they have one patient who has been getting dialysis for over 20 years! A lot of the patients are trying to get on the transplant list, but to even be able to get on to the transplant list at all, the patient's BMI must be below 30. There are very few patients that are currently meeting this criteria, so the RD works with the patients not only to control their labs, but also to help them lose weight so they can get on the transplant list.
One of the things that I had never thought about in dialysis that was really interesting is the treatment of the water used. The dialysis center has a really complex filtering system for the city water that is pumped in. There are at least 4-5 giant tanks in which different things happen to the water, removing different ions from the city water. Somebody tests the water 4 times every day, and if the tests are out of range the complete system gets shut down and they go to a back up system. If the backup system fails they actually have to stop dialyzing patients until the filtering system is fixed. It was just one of those things I had never thought about, but is really important to helping these patients get their treatment.