Playin' Bikes in Blue

I journeyed up to good old West Bend to Ride bikes with my ol' biking buddy Steve. We hit Glacial Blue Hills and rode some laps. Since I've moved to 'Tosa I haven't taken the opportunity to ride the WB trails. I nearly forgot how nice they are.

Cool Pic Taken out on the trail

Old Biking Buddy Steve

Me

Yet More Dialysis

So that catheter is giving us grief again today. The tech was here constantly for the for 45 minutes or so. I am finally running at a 250 blood pump speed and am running with fewer alarms. However with a speed that low I am not getting good dialysis. With my old catheter I was in the 500 range.

We just had to turn the fluid extraction off, my calves are starting to cramp. Part of dialysis is excess fluid removal. Since my kidneys are at pretty low function I tend to turn much of what I drink into excess weight (retained fluid) the machine extracts it during the the dialysis process and it seems I have reached my limit. We did take of 2.5 liters of the planned 2.9 so I will not drown from he inside.

Updates

Transplant

I sent in all my paperwork to UW Madison Health system. It was reviewed quickly and Marlyn (the KP transplant coordinator) we going to get me listed ASAP. I have not received a conformation yet but expect it any day. She told me that they have done 6 KP transplants since the end of August. I am the top of the list for the A blood group. I am hopeful that I will get the call soon.

More details as I know them.

Dialysis

My catheter is not working all that well. It alarms quite often during the dialysis. Some days have been better then others. Last week it ran so poorly they have to end the treatment early as the dializer was clotting off. It becomes circular, the catheter stops the blood flow - the when the blood flow stops it clots - when it clots too much the machine stiops and the blood clots more. And so on and so on.....Today is runs OKish. not a ton of alarms and they can run the blood pump a little faster than they could before. Faster blood pump equals better dialysis.

Will

Is still cute as hell. See photo below. Will is always an entertaining little dude.

Officially on the list

October 12 2009
I am officially on the list to receive a kidney / pancreas transplant. After much discussion on the merits of live donor transplant vs. getting my new organs from a cadaver. It boiled down to one surgery vs two, one course of anti rejection drugs vs two.

Of course the down side is that I am on dialysis until my name pops up for the next available A blood group set of organs. So I wait.

Some numbers...
At Froedert, I am the only one on the list for A blood group organs. The last recipient was on the list for 5 months.
At UW Madison where I am working to get on the list at the moment I also be at the top of the A blood group list. The last recipient was listed for 6 days prior to transplant.

I can wait that long. We will review where we are if after about 6 months nothing happens.

In this game, being of blood group A is a bonus.
Percentages of the population by blood groups
O - 47%
A - 40%
B - 9%
AB - 4%

Whilest A is a smaller number than O, the wait time is significantly shorter then O. The wait times for O blood groups are measured in years and the live donor would be the best options.

I will keep you all posted. Dialysis is nearly done so I am saving this for you all to read.

Fall Project Day

It was time to replace the screens with the winders'. After I accomplished this I went for a nice fall bike ride

Friday Afternoon Bike Ride

Somehow I avaoided the rain. Got about an hour in.

Dailysis was a failure again today. I gave up after about 90 minutes. Pressure alarm aafter pressure alarm. I will be going in tomorrow morning to try get my catheter sorted out. If we can't I may need to get a new one installed.