Opinion
Day 3,304 ...
That’s the number of days since I first began dialysis. They say time flies when you’re having fun. If that’s the case, then my plane is still sitting on the tarmac.
Speaking for the more than 100 patients on hemo dialysis in Lake County alone, dialysis is not fun. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve doing it.
Summer has passed and fall is here, and so much has happened to me since catching you up on the last nine years of my time on dialysis.
To make it short and to the point, I tried to back to peritoneal dialysis. After two catheters in my stomach area, many problems and a trip to Oakland for a consultation with a specialist, peritoneal dialysis wasn’t going to happen thanks to too many adhesions in the peritoneal portion of my stomach.
That would be another trip to Santa Rosa Memorial so the catheter could be removed. Great … another trip to be dazed and feel like heck for a week after surgery.
But this time I was looking forward as the next chapter of My Second Life was ready to begin. A really cool chapter!
A few years into dialysis, I was told about a program where patients could do hemo dialysis at home. The only thing was I would need a partner, the reason would be that after extensive training, your partner would be the one placing the needles in my arm.
There was just one person that could do for me. I didn’t think she would be up for it. Boy was I wrong!
The home hemo idea came up during the summer thanks to a stay at Memorial Hospital and a doctor enlightened both my wife, Peggy, and me one afternoon. He also happened to be the medical director of the program being studied by the U.S. Government in the hopes of one day including it in the benefits for those receiving Medicare.
Today, Medicare covers dialysis in centers and peritoneal dialysis at home.
Home hemo does not have a proven history of being beneficial to patients. But if those current cases show improved quality of life to those participating in it, then there will sufficient evidence for this type of treatment to be covered.
Current studies are already showing promise. Here are some of the current findings.
Dialysis patients on home hemo are hospitalized far less than those on other forms of dialysis.
Many patients find they no longer need their high blood pressure medicines because home hemo keeps their blood pressure at a regular level.
Home Hemo patients feel better and their quality of Life dramatically.
And on Nov. 3 we began training to perform home hemo in the privacy and security of our home. We’ll begin training and be ready to go before Christmas. For me, it is the best present I could have gotten this year.
Yes, I was wrong about Peggy not wanting to be my partner and wanting to stick me with the needles. When she talks about it, she gets this smile on her face and a glow in her eyes. I'll let you make your own decisions about what that means. These are but a few of the advantages.
But what are the differences ?
Home hemo patients dialyze six days a week. Medicare patients receiving treatments in-center only receive three treatments per week. Because of this patients’ blood is cleaned every day, just like someone with good kidney function. Current Medicare regulations allows in-center patients three treatments per week
Home hemo patients dialyze in the comfort, privacy and security of their own home. In-center patients are subjected to all kinds of viruses including colds and the flu. They have no other choice if they want to continue living. And from what I’ve seen over the years, I don’t think some patients truly do.
So off we go on our next adventure. It’s one I can’t wait to begin.
Brett Behrens is writing a regular column for Lake County News about dealing with serious health problems. Behrens, 46, is a native of Lake County. He has spent most of his life behind the lens as a photojournalist and the owner of a successful portrait photography studio. He continues his image-making activities as his time and eyesight allows.
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- Written by: Brett Behrens
In 1947 my father sent me off to military boarding school for three years, for third, fourth and fifth grades. I did not understand this move. Later, I found it was to keep me from the surroundings of my mother who was an alcoholic and unable to care for my little sister and I. My sister was being cared for daily by an outsider.
My first year in military school my mother picked me up each Friday at 2 p.m. for my weekend pass at home. One Friday she did not show by 2 p.m. I waited and about 6 p.m. the superintendent along with one of my classmate’s parents informed me that my mother and sister were in a serious auto wreck on Highway 101 in Marin County.
She was driving a two-week-old Cadillac totally impaired, crossed all traffic lanes heading north and jumped a creek. The car was bent in the middle and totaled. My sister was thrown out of the car into the creek. My mother was stuck in the car with her face smashed into the steering wheel.
The rescue personnel freed my mother and took her to the hospital. About an hour later the tow truck driver found my sister in the creek about 25 yards from the auto. She was taken to the hospital and checked out OK. My mother spent five months in the hospital and left with a terribly disfigured face for life. She never recovered, and ultimately drank even more.
Three years later I returned to public school for the seventh through 10th grades. Many days after school I would find my mother drunk in her car parked in our garage, passed out. I would get her out of her car and carry her two flights of stairs to her bed. She never learned a lesson about drinking alcohol after her wreck. She was never able to care for her family after the incident.
The sad part of this story is her consumption of alcohol on a daily basis literally destroyed our family. Mother and Dad lost most of their friends. We had a wonderful close-knit family with lots of friends that was lost and torn apart by alcohol.
Curt Giambruno is mayor of Clearlake and a member of Team DUI, a group of local individuals and officials working to stop drinking and driving and underage drinking.
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- Written by: Curt Giambruno
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