Not being colour-blind, blue and red should not be that easy to muddle up…

All haemodialysis machines have tubes that take blood away from the body of the patient and tubes that return the blood after it has been cleaned. For ease of identification, many machines clearly mark these as red (from the body (or arterial)) and blue (return to the body (or venous)). It’s a simple way to ensure that everything is set up correctly.

As a self-care patient, I have the responsibility of setting up my own dialysis machine when I arrive, and then connecting myself to the machine. Up until yesterday, this had gone relatively smoothly without error. However, at the end of dialysis when I went to replace the blue connector onto its holder on the machine, I found that it was in a different place. Yep. I had mixed up red with blue and blue with red.

Red where blue should have been! © Michæl McFarland Campbell 2022

lp to explain why, today, I am feeling so tired. Of course, there may be other reasons like the very busy weekend where I accompanied our Venture Scouts to Wicklow Historic Gaol.

The outside of Wicklow Historic Gaol. © 2022 Michæl McFarland Campbell

Whatever the reason, I am about to head out with Andrew to Port Laoise to make sure he can find where to get his booster Covid-19 vaccine. It will be about a couple of weeks until I will be able to get my booster, having had a third dose back in October.

Originally posted on Michæl McFarland Campbell.

One comment

[…] It was at this second stage that the usual routine was not followed. I was not feeling well, so one of the staff members offered to “prime” the machine, which she did. Unfortunately, she put red onto the blue and blue onto the red on the dialyser. No one noticed this error until the end of dialysis when I was about to put the blue line back onto its port — and then realised that the blue was on the red end of the dialyser. Ah well, I drained the machine and cleared it all in one go. At least this time, it was not my fault. […]

Unable to breathe on dialysis – HIV Blogger | living positively says:

2022-07-26 at 2:07 pm

[…] It was at this second stage that the usual routine was not followed. I was not feeling well, so one of the staff members offered to “prime” the machine, which she did. Unfortunately, she put red onto the blue and blue onto the red on the dialyser. No one noticed this error until the end of dialysis when I was about to put the blue line back onto its port — and then realised that the blue was on the red end of the dialyser. Ah well, I drained the machine and cleared it all in one go. At least this time, it was not my fault. […]