Bad News

Last night I got a call from my best friends husband. They had a bad day at the doctors office. I've blogged about my friend before. She's the one thats in renal failure. She has to dialyze 5 x daily at home. Well she's had an staff infection three times where the lining of her stomach is infected. She has tubing in her stomach and the doctor believes that the infection has attached itself to the tubing and this is why she has continued to get sick. So, she has to start going through hemo dialysis instead.
This is where she is hooked up to a machine in a dialysis clinic for four hours 3 x a week. Next week she'll have surgery to put a portal in her neck. She'll also get new tubing in her stomach for when she's able to go back to pariteneal dialysis at home. She'll be on hemo for the next 3 to 6 months. The hemo dialysis will allow for that infection to heal.
The big deal about the hemo is that she'll have to dialyze away from home and her energy levels will be really low. She said that when she was first diagnosed she was on hemo and it was so depressing. She had a hard time just feeling normal.
But she says that if she has to do this, she'll have to do it because it's whats keeping her alive.
This makes me think that all my problems are insignificant compared to what she has to deal with day in and day out. She just had a birthday. And she reminded me that each birthday is like crossing a milestone for her because she is still alive. When you think about this it's scary. It's scary because we just don't know how long she can survive with this disease.