Your cause, Support Organ and Tissue Donation, has reached 7,500 members!!!

Your cause, Support Organ and Tissue Donation, has reached 7,500 members! I got this notification in my facebook tonight and how very appropriate!

I had just left our PD(Peritoneal Dialysis) office and had to wait at a usually long traffic light. I looked over to my right and next to me at the light was a former primary HD patient of mine. Since I had seen this fellow I had heard that he had received a Kidney Transplant via the list. I hit my horn quick we rolled down windows and we had a short exchange. I said Congratulations on the transplant.
As a Dialysis Nurse it is such a thrill and so satisfying to have a connection with a patients that are transplant recipients. It is the ultimate Option and it is the way it should be for all ESRD Patients. In our PD office in the past 6 months there have been 5 Patients transplanted. Again it is so so Awesome!!!

PD Cycler Time Commitment

I wanted to talk a bit today about an option inside of options. For ESRD patients there are four basic options: Transplant, PD(peritoneal dialysis),HD(hemodialysis) and to do nothing and go without treatment.
Some may notice that my order puts PD in front of HD and my reason for this is that PD would be my choice before HD and I would recommend PD before HD to anyone seeking my advice. This choice is based upon a lot of PD advantages but in short it is the kinder and gentler dialysis.
Once PD has been chosen there two options inside of PD. CAPD(continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis) these are manual bag exchanges usually done four times throughout the day.
The other is CCPD(continuous cycling peritoneal dialysis) these are automated exchanges while connected to a small machine overnight.
When I begin the CCPD training for patients there seems to be a common misconception as to time commitment needed to receive adequate CCPD. The patient mindset seems to be that whatever their normal sleep time is will be equal to their total CCPD treatment time. When doing CCPD it is very common that your total treatment time can be nine or more hours. This is because the nighttime cycler prescription is written for several cycles and each cycle has a drain/dwell/fill time and again this is necessary for the Patient to receive enough dialysis.
Once the Patient understands this requirement it is almost never enough to deter them from doing CCPD. I think that this PD shortcoming in information can be avoided in the future by including this cycler information in whatever options program your system may provide. Hopefully this post will help too!