Slightly TMI, but not gross

    Nor will this be long. Dad has had recurring problems with unending burping while on dialysis. When it happenend the first time, a friend at the dialysis facility who is the son of another patient said that his mom had had the same problem and they switched her to a slower kind of dialysis. I've been trying to find out what that would be ever since and whether Dad could do the same.
    Yesterday, I finally got to talk to Dad's kidney doctor. He still didn't have official permission to talk about Dad's case with me, but was willing to discuss generalities. It turns out that the alternative form of dialysis is, uh, peritoneal I think he said. It doesn't matter very much because he said that Dad wouldn't be a good candidate. It requires muscle control or coordination somehow, neither of which Dad has a lot of, I had to agree.
    So honestly, this isn't TMI because it's gross or at least not by my standards; just unnecessary information. But I had wondered about it a long time and I had probably blogged about it, too. In case anyone else was wondering, there's the explanation. He said that they also offer overnight dialysis, but that there's a waiting list for that. It might be a solution, but since the facility isn't in the best neighborhood ever, it isn't something I'm overly enthusiastic about. We also talked about maybe finding Dad a primary care provider who specializes in treating old people. Maybe we can get that done, too.
    In general, I'm a lot more plugged in with the facility and the doctors now, and they seem to be pleased to see signs of interest, which pleases me in turn. They did in fact make additional effort to get his feet less swollen at yesterday's session, but his blood pressure got relatively low (100 over 50), so they didn't make a lot of progress. But they know about the problem and will keep after it.
    Today I got a followup call from the nursing director, and related that I would appreciate it if the nutritionist would talk to Dad about reducing his sodium intake. I had talked to the doctor about this as well and he had said that that was definitely indicated. And I talked to Dad about it and all he said was that the dialysis people want him to eat more protein. I pointed out that there's protein that isn't in the form of sausage or bacon, but how well the message got across I don't know.
    Anyway, it wasn't a great day, but much better than I expected. He didn't need a wheelchair to get out of the facility; he walked by himself. He was very weak, though, and the next few sessions are likely to be at least as rough. Hopefully we'll get all this squared away ASAP. Anyway, we're trying.