Hello again - we've had another little twist of events.
After running fine for about a week, we had a return to the fistula port access problems we had back in late-January.
Last Wednesday night we tried unsuccessfully for about 3 hours to access the port and had to put it off for the night.
Thursday afternoon we started at it again and ran into the same problems - every time we stick, we are not getting to the vein and the pain for Christian is becoming too much.
Doc came over again, but we could not get it this time. Doc brought us to his hospital locally so that we could use a device called the Veinlite to help map where the vein was. It turns out that the vein had moved completely out from under the access port - about 1/16th of an inch to the right.
So, we mapped the vein out and then went to eat pizza for Christian's birthday dinner. The extra time gave him a little break from the painful sticks and let us prepare him for another try. About 10:30 pm that night we got at it again but unfortunately, even with the extra guiding info, we were not able to get the access.
Being unable to dialyze for two days, Aida and Christian headed back to Houston at 6:30 am Friday morning. They made it for a dialysis session where after 2 attempts the pros got the access. Christian dialyzed without event after that.
However, this morning, after 2 hours and about 10 attempts, they were unable to get the access for today's dialysis, so they resorted to using the standard sharp needle technique.
The plan right now is they will stay in Houston a week or two. The doctors are going to have a 3rd access port created on Christian's arm so that we have more opportunities to access at home.
Christian is really not excited about doing the third port. You create the ports by sticking the fistula with a sharp needle in the exact same spot and angle for a few days in a row, then going to the "blunt" needle for continued access. Ideally this should get us to a point where the access sticks are done in 10 seconds and with very little pain, even without anesthetics.
That's where we want to be - and hopefully I can write back with some good news in that direction in a few days.
Take care.
Kiki's Dad
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