Sat. Jun. 30-2007 6:40 AM

I'm in dialsysis. Had a good night but had to use pain pills. Looking forward to today. Going to annual family picnic.

3 days till vacation!

The man next to me is right underneath the air conditioner and it's set to the convenience of the techs. Unfortunately, the patient suffers for it.

As you may have noticed, I'm CRABBY! Sorry....

Steps 2 get dialysis while on vacation

What I have to do:

How they see me:

Thur. 06-28-07 7:15 am

Good Morning All!

Feeling good today. Pain pills working good!

Counting the days till we visit my new (4 mos. old) grand daughter)

I've already arranged for dialysis there.

They took blood today so results will be in next week (I think)

Thanks to all you prayer friends!

Thanks also for your faithful support on driving me!

I felt so good Sunday people thought something was wrong with me!

Mon. Jun. 25, 2007

Good Morning Monday!

Got throught some tome weeks. Can't function without pain without a pain patch.

Felt exceptionally well yesterday. Some people say I talked too much!

Dialysis have been going okay.

Looking forward next week to going to NC to see my new (3 months old) grand daughter Charlotte) and of course her parents Jackie and Kari.

Looking for a laugh? See my other blog:
http://delwart.blogspot.com/2007/06/couple-years-ago-my-daughters-baught-me.html

or http://delwart.blogspot.com/

God's grace to me

When I think of how wonderful my daughters and church friends have been to me, it is so amazing how gracious how good God has been to me. I could just cry. Thank you Lord.

Number 15

I had to get catheter numbre 15 today!

After yesterday' s excitement I couldn't get a good dialysis today so had to get a new cathetheter put in on the left side. They took number 14 out on othe right side. Boy that was pleasant.... not.... much pain with that.

Lord willing we'll have a good dialysis Saturday. Right now I'm how would you say....?? hurting...

Dan

There might be some pressure...!

Yesterday I had cataract surgery on my right eye. It was considerably more painful but got through it. I could see better almost right away. When I went home and put the drops in my eyes they recommended I started losing my eyesight! That was pretty scary so Sher ended up taking me back to the eye doctor who said I might have too much pressure built up in my eye. By the time I got to the doctor I could see better. Phew! Today I'm some better so that's a relief.

Then I had an appointment with my nephrologist to have a vein mapping to prepare for my 2nd surgery on my fistula in my right arm. My concern was that since my last catheter was exchanged due to the infection, my right hand started swelling. Since Memorial Day it has swollen 3 or 4 times its' normal size.

When the nephrologist did the vein mapping he said the surgery did good but was concerned that the catheter was blocking the blood flow to my right arm, so....

He recommended I get an angiogram and if necessary an angioplasty to try to open up the clogged blood vessel. His hope was that he could put a tube up my arm and blow up a balloon and open up that blood vessel. Here we go again! After stigning the appropriate papers they wheeled me into surgery and performed the necessary procedure.

It wasn't too bad other than some pain and "pressure". The doctor said we should know in a few days how it did. A week at the most. If the swelling in my arm didn't go down they'd have to remove the existing catheter and put it in my left side!

So the moral of the story is..... I'm happy the church had a picnic tonight that I could go to and enjoy the fun and fellowship. The kids got a big kick out of me wearing my pirate patch.

I am so thankful for the church God has brought me into!

Remember to pray for Carolyn and Jim P.'s Dad anad Bill C.

Had eye surgery today

Just got done with the eye surgery in the right eye. Very painful but ended up okay. I'll write more later. Need to rest the eyes.

Dan

Mon. 06-11-2007 10:24 pm

I've been remiss in keeping you up on the latest happenings. Sorry about that, you deserve better.

I went to dialysis today because tomorrow I'm getting cataract surgery in my right eye. Then Wed. I'm seeing the eye doctor to make sure everything is okay. Then that afternoon I'm seeing my nephrologist so he can do a vein mapping (ultrasound) of my surgery to make sure it's okay then to schedule the final surgery (hopefully).

After the surgery (probably mid July), it should take at least another 4 weeks for it to heal up and then on to a new adventure in dialysis. If that works out okay, I'll get my temporary catheter removed (yahoo!) That should almost (I said almost) eliminate the infection problem. Dr. Rehan (my nephrologist) told me I had set a new record for catheters (14) in 6 months!

By the way, since I couldn't take any blood thinners today (because of surgery tomorrow), my blood clotted after about 3-1/2 hours of dialysis, so they had to stop it. Just in case you're wondering about the blood clotting, NO it doesn't go into my body. The dialysis filter won't allow it to pass (so that's a good thing!).

I did find out why I feel so lousy after dialysis. I thought it was the dialysis, but actually it was either the iron I get for my anemia (and boy I look the part don't I !) . It's a different kind of anemia caused by the kidney failure so they have to supplement it (sorry, can't just eat liver). Plus I get another thing called Epogen. When you have kidney failure your body doesn't produce red blood cells so good so they have to give you that to supplement it.

Anyway, before I got that at the end of dialysis I was feeling GREAT! I wanted to go out and walk or plow the back 40... really! But within a minute or 2 after getting the iron and epogen, I felt my lousy self after that. So now, I'm going to look into that and see if there can be anything done about it. If not, well that's okay too.

Anyway, this was a good day for me and I praise the Lord for it and for you. You mean so much to me and you have such a positive testimony for my family. Thank you!

My sister Linda came to the church picnic and commented 3 or 4 times while she was there what a good group of people you all are. Then the other day she told me again how she was surprised what a good group and how my youngest sister has to come to the church because "you just have to see for yourself". Now that's a powerful testimony and I pray that we would always be in love with the Lord so much that people walk away glad to be there because of how great our Lord is.

Thank you!

Love, Dan

p.s. please remember to pray for Carolyn (she said she was so grateful about you the church and the support you gave her. Plus I'm thankful that Ken followed Heb 10:24 and "provoked" her to come to church. Her son that lives at home with her also told me how good you have been to her and the family. Also, please pray for Jim P.'s dad. He has a long road to hoe and they all need wisdom on all the things he will be faced with. Also, I was thankful to see Bill and Katherine at church yesterday.

Hey, I can't quit typing...... blah blah blah.... Hey, I'm old what do you expect?

I'm saddened today..

... at Dwain O.'s passing.

Please pray for Carolyn and her family

Thur. 06-07.07 6:54am

Good Morning!

Had a much better night with the pain pills.

Trying to get the rest of my surgeries out of the way this month. I have cataract surgery the 12th and maybe my fistula surgery in my arm the 19th (tentative)

We'd like to go down to see my new grand daughter the first part of July

Please pray for Colleen' son.... post-traumatic war injuries and of course please continue to pray for Dwayne.

Have a good day

Wed. - 06-06-07

Rough night, lots of pain.

Some relief this morning and went to the "Friends" get together thanks to the Martins who picked me up.

We had a good group of people. Got to know a few people a little more. We talked about people we know who served in the military and some of the price they paid for us to be able to freely meet together this morning. A reminder to pray for them and their families.

A side note, on the History channel they're talking about D-Day. That's a price that was paid that we/me know so little about.

And just to show that I'm still a kid, I forgot my keys. Going to have to pin them on my shirt the next time.

After I got home, pain set in again an awful way. Guess I quit the pain pills too soon. Think I better listen the next time.

I'm going to the chiropractor in a bit to see if I can get some help. Thanks for your prayers!

Tues. - 06.05-2007

Got through dialysis today. This week I have to stay some extra time to get antibiotics from my infection last week.

Staying over at dialysis really brings out the money side of the thing. Everyone is in a rush to get you out of there so they can get the next person in.

But I am grateful that for the most part they take good care of me here.

I had to get off the pain pills as my eyesight was degrading from one of them. What do I want more? Seeing or more pain? I chose seeing.

I'm going to try to go to the Friends breakfast tomorrow. Looking forward to that. We have a good group of people and enjoy being with them.

Remember to pray for Carolyn and Dwayne and continue to pray for Jim P.'s dad and for the Crawfords.

Dear Friend...

This is ending up as an interesting day.

The good part was that I got to go to church this morning and see Bill and Kathy. Boy, I sure missed them. Another good part was that I heard Carolyn was there also, although I didn't get to say hi to her. Please pray for her as she goes through what many of you have. It was good to hear that she was depending on the Lord.

But now my sob story. The good part for me was that when I went to the doctor the other day, she told me I didn't have to take insulin any more for my diabetes! I hadn't had to take hardly any insuling in the last 2 months as proved out by my lab tests for the last 3 months. I'm thankful for that.

Another good part was that I'm not in the hospital! Close, but not there. One of the problems I had while in the hospital was that I may have a staph infection in my left hip. That causes immense pain. Fortunately, pain pills help take care of about 90 percent of that. The bad part is that those same pills cause me to have blurriness of my eyesight. If you've been keeping up on me, you'll remember that a few weeks ago that I had cataract surgery on my left eye. I had been doing better than usual according to the doctor, but at my last exam he said I lost some of the better vision that I had regained. He didn't think it was due to anything from the surgery but a good possibility was the pain pills.

I've tried to get off the pills but as soon as they started wearing off, the pain comes back... big time! So for those of you that are praying for me. Please pray that this dilemma is resolved. You know I've told many of you that I'm not as concerned about my physical problems as I am about my spiritual attitude. Of course, I'm doing everything possible for the physical health, but that attitude problem is really getting to me. I'm not looking for pity, just trying to share some of the things I'm going through. There are a lot worse things that could happen to a person, but you know, it just gets to you some times.