Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Wow what a day

I have had a really interesting morning today. I never thought I would describe dialysis as interesting but our unit is trialling 4 new machines and will then purchase one of them. I was the 'lucky' person who got to try this weeks machine today. They thought I would be the perfect challenge for it as it has a more unique way of helping people get excess fluid off who also have problems in dropping their blood pressure. Usually the nurse works out how much you have to lose in fluid and the machine works out if its safe to do that amount in the time allotted. If not then you do extra at beginning and end to take any more off. But the dialysis machine takes off what you tell it to manually and if their are any problems with people being ill the nurse has to then tell the machine to change how much fluid is coming off.
This new machine does all that for the nurse. Essentially it takes BP every 5 minutes which isn't a problem as I thought that might be a nuisance and it then adjusts the amount of fluid coming off accordingly. If the fluid is coming off and the BP is stable then the rate of removal stays the same if the BP dips the rate of removal goes down. Add to that the power to tell the machine at what point you want the BP to go to before the nurse is alerted it should never reach a point that a patient faints because their BP is too low. This is indeed a really good thing and I have to say I had the easiest dialysis for a long while and feel pretty good this afternoon.
Obviously I can't compare it with the others but this is a revelation to me at how far they have come and its a real shame that our trust haven't had the funds sooner for new machines. Dialysis is pretty rough at times but something like this could make the process so much more bearable and I for one will be putting a good word in for it. :-)
Stitching wise I have started my third corner of MVIII and am off to order my Chatelaine MTM. Yayyyy.

3 comments:

Gina said...

Lets hope they will buy that machine - and you get priority on it!!! LOL!!

Michelle said...

Well whichever they get I will luckily get to be on that one mostly as they are going to be better for people who have been on dialysis for a good long time. :-)

Scully said...

Fingers crossed Michelle that they get this machine. It sounds like it will make the whole process a lot more bearable, and also it allows the nurse to be put to good use somewhere else too!