In preparing for questions about our recent application for the VA’s Caregiver Program, I considered the weight of all the various components in successful treatment. Heretofore, it’s been about the bulk of the components that must be stored and replenished, not the weight that patients and/or their caregivers must bear. This blog clarifies this aspect from my viewpoint and experience.
My daily dialysis treatment requires me to use two six-liter bags of fluid for the cycler and a cassette. My evening static fill requires a two-liter bag of fluid for the pole with an attached drain bag. There are various other requirements that I will just lump into “other.”
I weighed one of the six-liter bags, and it weighed 13.6 pounds, so two each night is 27.2 pounds. They are shipped in a very heavy-duty cardboard box so let’s assume we’re looking at 30 pounds gross weight here that must be man-handled by the patient and/or caregiver. Assuming 30 days in the month, that’s 30 pounds times 30 days/month or 900 pounds per month.
Let’s look at the static two-liter bags now. If a 6-liter bag weighs 13.6 pounds, a 2-liter bag weighs 13.6/3, or 4.53 pounds. Now, 4.53 times 30 is 136 pounds. Now add this to the 900 for the six-liter bags, and we have 1036 pounds, well over 1/2 ton of “stuff” we must lug to and fro every month, to accomplish our dialysis routines.
Obviously, this does not include dealing with all the dunnage that results from unpacking all this stuff, which in and of itself, for us, is a heavy garbage bag each day, day in and day out. It never stops.
I posit that PD for us requires moving from the delivery truck to our home storage to where the dialysis fungibles are used, to use, to responsible disposable is more like 1500 pounds total. Now, we’re looking at at least 3/4 tons of effort required by someone to support home-based peritoneal dialysis.
Puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it? File under things they don’t tell you during training!
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