Catheter woes

Catheter. Failed. Again. Tonight at DaVita Dialysis. Darn! She only got an hour of dialysis, before the catheter stopped drawing blood. So much for "just reverse the leads." The nurse at DaVita says he called an order into Rose Medical Center, to have them look at the catheter, when she's there for the procedure to install a new Fistula tomorrow morning. I instinctively distrust this communication, but I have no way to cross-check it, until we get there tomorrow at O'dark-30.

Amelia Arriving Dakar

Amelia is already beginning her descent toward Dakar, Senegal, after flying from Natal, Brazil. And it seems like my day has barely begun...

No catheter procedure today

The doc here says one lumen is push-only (needs to be pullable, probably blocked by a fibrin sheath), but the other one is still push-pull, so the Davita dialysis people should've tried reversing the leads, when it didn't work the normal way. He's sending her home without doing ("saving her from") another catheter replacement procedure. Sigh. — at Colorado Renal Access and Imaging Center.

He says this catheter installation is complicated by having to run alongside the pacemaker leads in the same vein to the heart. Probably will never work very well. She needs a new fistula. Fortunately, she's scheduled for that surgery tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, we have to get her to a new medical facility (Rose), a 40 minute drive across town, at 6:30am tomorrow morning. Fortunately, we have good directions. Unfortunately, she has dialysis tonight, so we'll be up late. Ugh.

Amelia at Miami

Tracking Amelia Rose Earhart on her flight segment from Denver to Miami -- she just arrived! She did a good job of circumnavigating some nasty looking thunderstorms.

New fistula surgery

Kristan is scheduled to have vascular surgery on Tuesday, to create a new Fistula graft. Starting over, this time it will be in her upper arm. After it finishes growing in three months (or perhaps sooner), this will replace the jugular catheter they are using now.

Top 25 grammar and language mistakes

Ran across a great writeup on pet grammar peeves. Always nice to be reminded of good ways to do things. See my page on the subject in the sidebar, or follow this link.

Catheter Exchange

These guys called at 7:15 and asked if we could get here by eight, to do the catheter exchange to get her dialysis port working again. We almost did. Wow. But, so much for getting to work early, on my first day back from vacation. — with Kristan Attardi Hushing at Colorado Renal Access and Imaging Center, on the old Lowry airbase property.

I stopped for a hot drink at Starbucks in the nearby Albertsons, before starting the adventure of finding my way to work from here. Another wow -- I just realized the last time I was at this Starbucks, was with Mikele's husband Bob in January 2012, a month before I broke my ankle. Little did I know, that I was about to have that excitement in my life!

Fun stuff with Otamay

My Sis and I kept each other pretty busy, during her 2 week visit:

6/21 Breakfast on Broadway; drive O to airport
6/20 Le Peep; Walk Johnson Reservoir in Clement Park
6/19 Cafe Terracotta; Walk Downtown Littleton; more Gem hunting
6/18 Racines; Denver Museum of Nature and Science; Gem hunting
6/17 Hike to Devil's Head Lookout; Lunch at Jerusalem
6/16 Egg & I; Walk Northridge Park; Jamba Juice
6/15 Breakfast on Broadway; Walk Harvard Gulch Park w/Ken
6/14 Racines; Walk Denver City Park w/Ken
6/13 DW's 285 Diner; Walk Flying J Ranch Park
6/12 Blue Cow; Walk Morrison on Bear Creek Trail
6/11 Walk to Blueberry's
6/10 Breakfast on Broadway; Walk S. Platte River from Overland Park
6/09 Original Pancake House; Walk DeKoevend Park
6/08 O slept in; S/Ken went to Racines and Denver City Park
6/07 O slept in; S/Ken went to Egg & I and S. Platte River; Afternoon walk S. Platte River from Aspen Grove
6/06 Late night arrival!

Catheter collapsed

Kristan's jugular catheter has collapsed, so she can't be dialyzed. Damn, I thought those things were bulletproof. She texted me, to pick her up from dialysis early. She will need to go to ER on Sunday to check potassium, and and will need an appointment with Interventional Radiology on Monday, to figure out what to do about the bad catheter. The nurse at DaVita Dialysis said she'd try to schedule that appointment, but of course the IR people were gone for the weekend, by the time we knew about this. — at DaVita Dialysis Center.

Sister visiting

I'll be busy doing things with my Sister between June 6-21!

A day alone

Glad to come home and find that Kristan and Mandy had survived all day with nobody else at the house today. Her caregiver was dealing with overheating car problems, and couldn't come. K says she slept most of the day, then woke up to the very loud sounds of a major hail storm pummeling the roof. As it turns out, that was the same hail storm that had me in my car hiding under a tree on the way home. The quarter-size hail mostly shredded the tree, so now my car is covered in pieces of tree leaves and small branches.

Pretty Storm

This impressive afternoon thunderstorm developed rapidly, giving us a nice view from the deck, turned orange around the edges from the sunset, then drifted off to the East in the darkening evening sky.

Low Blood Glucose

Kristan is resting quietly at the Littleton Hospital ER. She had numerous low blood glucose events, at home overnight, not sure why. We barely gave her any insulin for a 300 BG before going to bed. Then gave her tons of carbs, trying to get it up, and it was very balky, staying low most of the night. She had a make up Dialysis very early this morning, and when BG was very low coming off dialysis, and not responding to treatment, they called paramedics who transported her here. She mentioned that she had fallen in the last 48 hours, and her head and nose hurt, so they are getting an X-ray and a CT scan.

Update 8pm: Doc said no surprises in X-ray or CT. BG seemed stable, so they sent us home. Yay. Mandy was very happy to see us, after holing up in K's closet all day. She wouldn't go out with Lorene, but jumped at the opportunity, once I got home.