AV Fistula surgery follow-up and other odds and ends (contains some graphic images...you've been warned).

I've got a whole bunch of emotions that I'm dealing with right now, and I don't even know where to begin.  Whenever this happens, I turn to the photostream on my phone to help me get started (which explains why this post is so picture-heavy :)  I figure that (maybe) if I start writing things about these photos, then all of the other emotions may come to the surface and slowly seen out.  This blog is my therapy and I'm in desperate need of some.

This is my friend Mindy.  We "met" a fear years ago on a blog of someone we both followed.  I don't even remember the exact way it happened, but we discovered we were both in Minnesota, and our friendship grew slowly from there.  We've had lunch a few times here in the cities when she and her family come down (they're in the northern part of Minnesota), but this time she offered to come and help out with my fistula surgery (since I was so hammered from my nephrectomy), and I took her up on it.  It's never easy for me, or us as a family, to accept help, but it's something we know we need to work on.

Mindy is the kindest soul...what I love about her is how positive she is and how openly appreciative she is of her friends!  She's a transplant here too (from Vegas), and I've often marveled at how easy it is for her to make friends, which is something I've struggled with here.  Anyway, it was really great having here here...Joacim and Izzy loved her as well, and we're all looking forward to seeing her again soon!

These are pictures from surgery day.  The original plan was for general anesthesia, but I had had one terrible experience with that prior, and that was enough for the anesthesiologist to think differently, and I ended up with a nerve block.  This is the doctor using an ultrasound machine to find the nerve in my neck/shoulder to block the full length of my arm.

I'll admit that I was REALLY nervous about this surgery.  Partly because I wasn't even healed from the one I'd had 8 days prior, but also because the last time I had a surgery on my fistula was incredibly painful....I mean the WORST.  But having this nerve block changed everything.  I woke up happy and smiling and requesting a popsicle :)

And I was amazed that I could use it the next day. I had started creating new buttonholes the week before in preparation for the surgery, and they worked fine the day after surgery, even though one of them was SO close to the incision.

The surgery scars initially after are pretty ugly.  This was the first time that I'd had actual stitches in all of the surgeries I've had in the last 2 years...usually it was just stern-strips keeping everything closed.

This is the vein they took to repair the actual fistula.

Random addition to this post, but we finally had a real snow day....around 9" of beautiful snow!!!

Ahhh....and here are my buddies....I love these pups....

Our neighbor brought over her old snowboard for Izzy to try....she's quite a natural athlete, but the gymnastics training she's been doing for the last 5 years has been superd-helpful for her balance.

NOW FOR THE GRAPHIC IMAGES PART!!!  DON'T LOOK ANY FURTHER IF YOU'RE QUEASY AT THE SIGHT OF BLOOD......

So the other day while dialyzing, I noticed that the venous (return) needle was starting to "back out" from the pressure.  I didn't have it secured properly and needed more tape, so I reached over my arm to get the roll of tape, and the whole needle came out while the machine was running.  I spent a good 4-5 seconds panicking and then just starting closing any clamp that was close.  That wasn't working so I just stopped the machine entirely.  Holy shit, that was a lot of blood.  The venous site was spewing blood, as was the dislodged needle....all over the chair, heating pad, my face and hair.  There aren't a lot of things grosser than being covered in your own warm, sticky blood.  Ahhh...a day in the life of a dialysis patient.  Luckily I usually only make these mistakes once ;)