Last week ended with a bit of a sour note: we went into surgery on Friday expecting to widen the vein-artery hookup for Sabine's fistula. Instead, we got the bad news that the connection was not working and that (again) Sabine's veins were too small.So, this coming Friday we will meet with the access surgeon, Dr Yolanda Becker, and see what she recommends. We do have some good x-rays and Dr. Yevzlin, the surgeon on Friday, said he saw some promising veins near the elbow of the arm.
Right now, with all of Sabine's surgery scars on her arm she looks like she has been in a knife fight and lost!
We recovered the disappointment of the day by continuing our plans to do a trial run with our new camper and to do dialysis at one of our state parks on the way to see our grandkids in St. Paul.
We stopped at Willow River State Park near Hudson and found it to be a magnificently beautiful park with high bluff hiking trails, a cascading waterfall and plenty of deer seeking
refuge from the hunters that surrounded the park. We woke up on Saturday morning to find three of them meandering around our campsite.We had packed up and rechecked all of our dialysis supplies, and although the surroundings were somewhat confined, the treatment procedure went well with no problems and no alarms on the machine! The camper has a heater, hot water, refrigerator and all the comforts of home. It got below freezing that night, but we were quite comfortable in our queen sized bed with down comforters.
After a long hike on Saturday morning we settled down for the day over a campfire.Saturday was our dialysis "day-off" and we woke up early Sunday morning, did the procedure and then headed up to St Paul to see Peter, Tammy, and our three grandkids: Samantha, Ben and Hannah.
We spend the night in the camper in Pete and Tammy's driveway, had breakfast with the gang, kissed them "goodbye" and headed back to Wisconsin.
What started out as a potential "bummer" for the weekend turned out to be the best of all times! God is good!
