Apparently, on the way to church Sunday, my Dad noticed a small wet spot on his dress shirt near where his dialysis "port" is. As the day went on, the spot grew larger and larger... until the front his shirt was almost completely soaked. It was obvious that he was somehow leaking out of his port area. Not good.
As I've mentioned before, my dad does Peritoneal Dialysis at home every night. This differs from hemodialysis, which is the more common type of dialysis. With hemodialysis, your blood is circulated through a machine with a filter which removes all of the bad stuff. Then the clean blood goes back into your body.
With PD, a big bag of dialysis solution is put into the body through a catheter that is permanently fixed into your abdominal cavity. The solution contains dextrose which pulls waste products and extra fluid into the cavity. The solution stays in your body for a while and then is drained out (along with all the bad stuff).
Because there is a catheter that goes into my dad's stomach, he has to be extra careful about getting infections. You can imagine how frightening it might be to find out you have a crack in your tube. Because if stuff can come out, that means stuff can also go in.
My dad called up his kidney doctor who advised he go to the emergency room. The ER people scratched their heads and he eventually got admitted late late Sunday night/Monday morning. They did a CAT scan to make sure that his catheter was not damaged on the inside. Then they attempted to repair the outer portion of his tube which had a small crack in it.
Throughout the day Monday and Tuesday, the checked my dad for infection and loaded him up on antibiotics. They're still not sure if the tube repair solved the problem... but for the time being, my dad is grateful that he doesn't have to have the catheter completely replaced.
Replacement would require surgery and missing 2-3 weeks of work. With the prospect of getting a new kidney soon (thereby negating any need for a dialysis catheter), my dad is hesitant to have a brand new catheter installed unless absolutely necessary.
He was let out of the hospital Tuesday afternoon and the last I heard, was trying to get in to the dentist while he was in town. He has to get a few fillings before he can get the kidney transplant. I guess they want his teeth taken care of to help minimize the risk of infections during the transplant.
Just a few more days now until my final tests and meeting with the Kidney Doctor. My dad said he had spoken to one of the coordinators, who indicated that it could be another 4-6 weeks after I finish testing before the transplant could be scheduled. That puts us somewhere around the end of October or beginning of November.
Hopefully on Friday I wont find out that I only have one kidney.
