By
Erich Ditschman (Originally posted to LinkedIn)
I love working
with Andria Ditschman, my high school sweetie, spouse, and living kidney
donor, on a project. Last week we closed out this year’s National Kidney
Foundation Project Echo Home Dialysis with the last segment of the year.
Our topic was care partners.
While we’ve been together since the early eighties, I have been
fortunate to have Drea as my home hemo dialysis care
partner since 2001.
We discussed what Dori Schatell describes as the continuum of
care during our didactic and what that has meant to us.
In our case, Drea did everything when in 2001 when we
came home with a reverse osmosis system and a full size dialysis
machine, and I worked as a water resource consultant. Then I
moved to the PD cycler and manual exchanges and took
charge. I did the same when I switched to NxStage System
One in 2006 and Pureflow in 2008. That year I also switched to nocturnal
home hemodiaysis. Drea would step into help when I was under the
weather. But, I prided myself on protecting her time with our
children and on independently taking care of myself.
But last Thanksgiving, bacteremia affected my back, my vascular graft burst
open, and MRSA impacted my heart and shoulder, so we reverted to
me needing Andria 100% for dialysis, mobility, and basic
help.
Slowly, over months, we returned to home hemo. The worst of the pain
left my back, my shoulder and back were rehabbed and I eventually didn’t
need the walker. My mobility returned.
We learned to use my new chest catheter as I underwent surgeries to
build a new fistula. Once it was mature, I returned to sticking
myself and the catheter was removed. It was like starting to
learn home hemodialysis again.
Over the last few months, I’ve regained the strength to set up my
machine, program it, and hook up. But, we still share some of
these steps. I’m not sure why I’m not as respective of her time
as I was at the beginning. But I have a hunch that I just want to spend
more time with her.
When I was rushed to the OR last Thanksgiving, the surgeon told
Drea that we just want to get him off the table. She sat alone
in the waiting room for the next four hours.
We are back to traveling, advocating for kidney patients, and spending time
with our children, friends, and family. I’m not quite as I was before
the infection,
but I’m getting closer.
Because of my care partner and many others this will be a very
thankful Thanksgiving.
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- Source: https://homedialysis.org/news-and-research/blog/576-a-very-thankful-thanksgiving