health
I’m very pleased to hear that University College Dublin Students’ Union has created a campaign raising awareness of U=U in conjunction with HIV Ireland’s #MPOWER service. Well done to former UCDSU President, Conor Anderson, for speaking out and raising awareness. Continue reading What does Undetectable=Untransmittable mean?
It is heartening to hear that the Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service is changing its rules for blood donation to allow gay men who have been in a same-sex relationship for three months or more to give blood as part … Continue reading Progress on gay blood donation: does it take account of U=U?
At the beginning of May, my dialysis unit (the B Braun Wellstone Midlands Renal Care Centre in Port Laoise) made a suggestion of trying to see how many steps we could take each day to improve our mental health. The … Continue reading Walking challenge helped mental health: near 110,000 steps in last week!
So, on Friday, I had created a table for recording particular stats whilst on dialysis. Then a friend suggested that I use a bullet journal to make things easier, so I have done that. I then realised that I had a blank page to the left of my table, and so have used that to create checklist to keep track of my medications. So, let’s see how this goes for the next few days and then I will decide whether to continue or not. Continue reading Revised format for recording dialysis and HIV medications and stats
Dialysis, like much of healthcare, is all about numbers. The numbers may be examined on a yearly, quarterly, monthly, or weekly basis. Some are checked hourly during each dialysis session. Usually, these hourly numbers are registered and checked by the … Continue reading HSE computer hack has helped mental health for me as a dialysis patient
Since I transferred my dialysis care from the Midlands Regional Hospital in Tullamore to the B Braun Wellstone Midlands Renal Care Centre in Port Laoise, we have been working towards the goal of self care. This will be where I will take responsibility for my own care and my own dialysis in conjunction with the unit staff. I am already back to cannulating my own fistula, and preparing the trolley in advance of this. Soon, I hope that the unit staff will start to teach me to prepare the dialysis machine in advance of the treatment. In the last week, … Continue reading Self care becoming an achievable goal
It would have to happen on the day that Europe went into daylight-saving time, so now that we’re on Irish Standard Time, I was awake at 06:00 to ensure that I would be on the 08:41 train from Portarlington to … Continue reading AstraZeneca jab 1 received this morning
I earned my “degree” in Epilepsy Awareness in advance of #PurpleDay. Why not get yours by clicking the link below? https://bit.ly/2BkBAOu Epilepsy Ireland is the only organisation in the country that supports the needs of the 40,000 people who are living with the condition … Continue reading Epilepsy Awareness “degree” awarded
Yesterday, I recognised the gear change that has happened in my care for living with chronic kidney failure. Since December 2018, when my kidneys failed due to Goodpasture Syndrome, I have received my dialysis treatment in a hospital setting. At … Continue reading Dialysis gear change
It doesn’t seem that long since I “graduated” from dialysis in Tallaght University Hospital to dialysis in the Midlands Regional Hospital in Tullamore. That event happened in June 2019. Since then, of course, we have had the year of Coronavirus which has skewed how time feels to have passed. There have been highs and lows whilst receiving care in Tullamore. I’ve had to fight HIV stigma (see this post). Some of that is still ongoing, some of the problems have been resolved. There’s still no social worker for the hospital in Tullamore (see what I did on that issue). That … Continue reading End of an era… new chapter begins tomorrow
