It is coming up on a year since my kidneys failed. It has been a year of readjustments. Still the readjustments are needed. I am more or less settled into the rhythm of dialysis three times a week. Currently, I get it on the afternoons of Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. So, for those days I have to be in Portarlington by 1.15 pm so that I can be got to Tullamore for dialysis by 2 pm. I am often lucky to be home by 7 pm.

For the last few weeks, I have been consistently arriving for dialysis under my dry weight. The simple reasons for this are that I do not drink anywhere near the 1 litre limit of fluid each day, and I have no appetite so am not eating very much at all. Couple this with the problem of having to take a whole new raft of medicines, and I am not a happy chappy at all.

I must admit that there are days when I just want to stop taking the medication completely. But, I know that that would not be a good idea if I want to live anything like a normal life.

Last night, I managed to drink some fluid. I had some apple juice, about 750 ml of it. This meant that today, I was over my dry weight for the first time in weeks. Today, the dialysis machine is set tot take 300 ml of fluid off me. That should bring me down to my dry weight of 79.5 kg or 12 stone 7 pounds for those who like it in ‘old money’.