Whew!

This has been a busy week again and it's only Thursday!

Earlier this week we had a dialysis machine failure. After an hour into the treatment we had to shut down and manually return Sabine's blood (this was great for me, I love emergencies I can handle!) but probably a little trying on Sabine.

[The picture above is us dancing in the park last week!]

We called the machine supplier in Massachusets and within 24 hours we had a new machine delivered. We did the programming and off we went. We had some alarms and needed to contact tech support a couple of time to resolve them.

Then we had labs on Monday in preparation for meeting with a member of our transplant team on Wednesday. Sabine's blood work all looked good with her hemoglobin rising again to 9.4 (still below normal but climbing). She got the okay to travel to Glacier Park at the end of this month!

But... her fistula arm appeared to be swelling (this along with the alarms with the dialysis machine) so we were sent to UW Hospital for an arteriogram and checkup.

As we expected, there were blockages in the fistula and catheter areas and the surgical team immediately set about clearing them. After surgery we saw the "before and after" xrays and knew that the intervention worked (I think it's the same process as a heart catheterization).

Sabine was a little groggy after surgery but we soon were on the way home with a few puncture holes in her arm -- but with excellent results.

Earlier this week, daughter Yumi was home on leave from the Army and was able to help out (her new medical corps assignment seemed appropriate). Yumi will most likely be posted to Iraq or Afghanistan early next year and that will be a time of concern for all of us.

Next week we take labs again and have out monthly "clinic day" at the dialysis center and, we both will be thinking about that beautiful national park called Glacier and making arrangements for supplies to be delivered to our lodge and for the camper to be packed!

All in all, it's been a lovely summer...