Well 2021 was a busy year for us. Starting in Lakewood, NM I was doing dialysis in Artesia, NM three days a week (started March 2020). In May our daughter in Austin, TX (Carole) came for a visit for a few days. One of the days we were talking of the future what were our plans for the future. I had none but my wife wanted to move back east to North Carolina near our two other daughters.
Carole
By the end of the month we had decided to sell our moterhome and buy a destination trailer. In June giving up our lot at Lakewood and traveling to San Angelo, TX to purchase our trailer. Moving our Personnel affects (tiering) onto the trailer and having the trailer transported to North Carolina.
My wife in the kitchen with salesman
In San Angelo and along the way east I had to have dialysis three times before arriving in North Carolina. July first we arrived on North Carolina. Our daughter Christine was able to be there to receive the trailer, the transport driver made the trip faster than us traveling by car and stopping for me having dialysis treatment. Upon arriving I did need a treatment and had nothing scheduled so I went to the hospital. Covid test (PCR) and treatment I then was able to get a “chair” at a new Fresenius dialysis center in Holly Springs North Carolina, about the same distance as Artesia was from Lakewood. We still had more to do setting everything up around the house. Our son-in-law helped me build a deck and porch off our entry door. We needed a large gas bottle (100 pounder) for our heat, our son-in-law purchased that and transported that to the park.
the deck we built
Over the summer our daughter from Austin, TX (Carole) and her son (Avery) came east for a visit, nice and our three daughters got together with us, a fun time.
100 hundred pound bottle
Then a round of doctors, Primary Care, my wife & I, Cardiologist and dialysis doctor. By September I also needed a surgeon for replacing my blood catheter, then putting in a PD catheter who found a hernia so that got fixed. Catheters,
PD catheter
I am switching from blood to PD. A PD catheter (sometimes called a Tenckhoff catheter) is a special tube (some of that is sticking out of my belly) that is inserted into your abdominal cavity (space around the organs within your tummy). A 2000 ML liquid is put in thru the PD catheter for an amount of time then drained out removing toxins and water. Which means the 2000 in and 2400 out, the amount out varies with the amount of water removed. This training started December twenty. This PD dialysis will be done at home so I am switching to home dialysis. Training for this is in Fuquay Varina, North Carolina. So we have boxes of supplies for both systems with some stored a my daughters house
So now it is the new year we have a lot of learning to do. There are two processes we have to learn manual and with a machine that does the work overnight. These two processes use different size bags of liquid and each process uses three types of liquid to cleans the blood and remove water.
