Jeff's Journal

Not much...

Not much time to write this week and not much to write because not much has happened this week. Still waiting on results from Donor #9.

I am still spared the 4.5-hour routine. Why? I don’t know. I asked the nurses and they don’t have an answer from the doctors. Blood work was done last treatment, so that may tell the tale.

This week has been puke week. Three of the four people across from me were very sick on Tuesday and then two of the four were sick on Thursday. I am a sympathetic puker. If someone is wrenching his or her guts out in my presence, it draws me into the same behavior. I had trouble with the boys when they were sick. They would be sick and then I would be right behind them. Fortunately, I did not succumb this past week.

Sometimes people become ill because the blood pressure drops too far. Since these folks were sick late in their treatment, it was most likely the bp issue. There were several from the early treatment schedule still in their chairs waiting to walk. If the bp drops too far, they don’t let you leave. Besides, you cannot get too far. One morning I arrived to find someone fainted outside. I got one of the techs to help me bring him back in.

There is a new tech finishing his training this week and he is learning. I watched him stick my young friend. The first stick was painful and the second stick was torturous. I have never seen my friend pull out of the chair before, but apparently the needle went through some scar tissue that required some “encouragement” before it would puncture the skin. Instead of the usual two sticks, he got three on Thursday.

This tech was working my bay and he is learning you have to watch the patients. I think that is how so many became ill. He is learning for what to watch on the patients. In my chair, I am teaching him to read the orders. He pulled too much fluid off me and I was cramping. When I questioned why I was cramping and reviewed the treatment for the day, he had set me to pull too much. He thought my treatment was like the other patients’ rather than knowing I pull easy and should be set different from the usual protocols. It is tough for others to learn at my and my friends’ expense. He offered to cannulate my veins rather than prepare the catheter. That was a lesson I was not willing to take.

posted by Jeff Waldo @ 10:22 PM