After putting it off as long as possible....

On December 4th, Bruce had surgery to put catheter in for Peritoneal Dialysis.
The doctor moved the surgery up one week because he said he was going to end up in the ER if he didn't get on dialysis. His function is still good enough to not need it - about 15% but the toxins are taking over his body fast and he gained 17lbs of water weight.

This was an outpatient surgery done at hospital - it was only a 30 minute surgery but we were at hospital from 10- 5:30. The bill from hospital was $17,000.00. That does not include the surgeon's bill. OUTRAGEOUS! He had a lot of pain afterward and swore pain pills were not working. The next day he was a lot better, and within 4 days he was back to normal and working again.

Once the surgery site is healed he will start dialysis training.

His doctor believes that Peritoneal Dialysis is best for him since he is young and needs to save his veins in his arm in case he needs it later. This type of dialysis can be done manually by him at home 4 times a day and eventually on a machine at night only. So it gives him more freedom also.

There were no complications from surgery except some blisters and redness where the laproscopy went in. He can not get the access site wet, so bathing and washing hair was a challenge. It's hard for him to bend over and he can't lift anything over 30 lbs.