[JoeFromSidney]

My first wife was on dialysis the last five years of her life. However, she wasn't on one of the machines. She was on what was called Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD). She had a fixture inserted next to her belly-button. Through that she filled her abdominal cavity with a sugar solution. It absorbed water and waste products by osmosis. After something like four hours, she dumped out the fluid and replaced it with fresh fluid. For those who can use it, CAPD is much better than spending several hours on a machine every day. She could carry on a fairly normal life.

Two problems, though. First, the osmosis worked both ways. She absorbed a lot of sugar out of the solution, and gained weight without having enjoyed eating the sugar. Second, she had to be very careful about infections, since there was a direct connection to her abdominal cavity. Despite considerable care in keeping things sterile, she'd occasionally get an infection. That meant putting an antibiotic into the dialysis fluid before filling her abdomen with it. That always cleared up the infection, but the infection was an indication that somewhere she'd slipped up on keeping things sterile.

She eventually died of complications from the tuberculosis she'd had as a child. However, I'm grateful for the additional five years I had with her, made possible by CAPD.

If you or a loved one needs dialysis, at least ask if CAPD will work for you or them. It's not for everyone, but if it will work for you, it's a lot better than a dialysis machine.

[Mears]

“She eventually died of complications from the tuberculosis she’d had as a child. “

—

That sentence jumped out at me.

I was exposed to TB as a child,in the 30s,and still test positive on the tine test,although I never contracted the disease.

How many years had lapsed when the TB recurred?