February 2007
Dear Friends,
January was a blur for us! My husband, Ted began kidney dialysis in December. In January we took the training to do home hemodialysis. We spent most of each day,
five days a week, in the clinic learning dialysis while my husband was on the machine – truly hands-on learning! Thankfully, we were blessed with a wonderful, patient nurse
to train us.
We had to demonstrate competency on 16 pages of skills, and then pass a written final exam. At the top of the exam were these words: “The only acceptable score is 100%!” If you missed anything on the test, you had to be retrained and take the test over. I’m happy to report that we passed the first time.
A training tool in the dialysis clinic: The artificial
kidney is the cylinder at far left. It is connected
to blood tubing and therapy fluid tubing. All of this
is connected to the dialysis machine which pumps
Ted's blood, filters it and returns it to his body
continuously during dialysis. Each day, we use a
new, sterile set of all of these.
The machine is heavy but fits on the seat of a car. We brought it home, rearranged our back bedroom for dialysis, took delivery of over 900 pounds of dialysis supplies (mostly bags of fluids), set everything up and, on January 31st, we did our first dialysis on the NxStage machine all on our own.
Home, sweet home! Our first dialysis at
home on the new NxStage machine. I
hook the blood lines to a catheter in Ted's
chest and then start the machine.
It went flawlessly. Why? Because we worked hard, learned all the lessons, practiced over and over until we got it, and demonstrated mastery. We were exhausted, and at times we felt the pressure of it all. But what a great feeling of accomplishment at the end when we passed. I kept saying, “We did it! We did it!” It means better health and quality of life for my husband.
Parents, I share this because too often these days I hear many say they are “stressed out” over taking tests (or having their children take them), or they worry about their child’s self-esteem, or don’t want to push them too hard, etc. Self-esteem is the result of accomplishment, of trying your best; it is not something you “teach” someone to feel.
Children, and adults, will work to reach the level of your expectations. Set them high and they’ll strive to reach them. Demand their best. Yes, there probably will be pressure and stress. That’s not necessarily a bad thing! We need to remind ourselves and teach our children that we are to be overcomers (read the first few chapters of Revelation to see the rewards our Lord has for those who overcome).
Here’s one of the questions I remember from our final exam: “Describe what you do if there is a fire in the house during dialysis.” The answer is: Stop the dialysis machine, clamp the patient’s blood lines and disconnect immediately from the machine. Grab the emergency bag (always kept nearby) and get out of the house. Once outside, call 911. Take supplies out of the bag, use sterile procedure and flush the patient’s catheter with sterile saline. Give 200 cc’s of saline to replace blood lost in the machine. Put 1.9 cc’s of heparin in the end of each catheter, clamp and close with sterile end cap.
Hopefully we will never need to use that procedure, but there are many others we do every day that must be done precisely, in order, and often with sterile procedure. Although some errors can be corrected, others could be fatal. So, you give your best, 100% every day, and pray and trust the Lord to give you His strength, His grace, and enable you to be a channel of His love as you care for another. Actually, that’s what mom’s do every day!
We each serve the Lord in different ways and different places. I used to start my day going through my schedule and listing what I would do that day. It’s good to plan your day, but we need to be ready and willing to do whatever our Lord needs us to do. Since our lives were turned upside down, I began starting my day differently.
Before I get out of bed, I pray, “Lord, help me to serve You today and show forth Your love, Your grace and mercy. Send me into Your vineyard to do whatever You need me to do. If You send me today to the corner of Your vineyard called “dialysis clinic” then I will cheerfully serve You there. If You send me to another corner called “hospital,” I will serve You there. If it is in our home, I will serve You there. Wherever You need me, I will go. Only help me to bring glory to You, and not to insist on my own way, my agenda, or my timing. Your ways are perfect! (Psalm 18:30) You have ordained my days before there was one of them (Psalm 139) and You order my steps (Psalm 37:23). So I know I am not in the wrong place, even though it may not be my first choice of places to serve! Help me to speak only kind words today (Proverbs 31:26), to serve You with patience and joy (Galatians 5:22), and to show forth Your love (I Corinthians 13:4-8) to my husband and those You bring across my path today. Only in Your strength, Lord (Nehemiah 8:10)! Amen.”
I pray each of you will be encouraged to give each day to the Lord and serve Him without complaining, wherever He may place you. Whatever we do, wherever the Lord places us, we are serving Him. That’s right, you serve Him when you do the laundry, make another meal even if it’s devoured in 5 minutes, patiently train your children, change another diaper, or listen to your husband when he gets home from work and you’re tired. One day, we will each stand before our Lord and give an account of what we did and what we said. I pray each of us will be found faithful and true.
Until next time ~
Yours in Him,
Copyright, 2007, Laurie Latour.
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