(What) Comfort in the Dialysis Center(?)

This one is from a discussion on www.ihatedialysis.com about comfort in dialysis centers. Here's my response:

For the most part, I have been happy with the professionalism of the dialysis staff in the centers where I've been treated (with the exception of visiting centers--yikes! travel is pretty much out of the question). Right now, there is some consistency in the staffing for our in-center nocturnal, so that has been a big improvement. Also, there is wireless internet now, but I don't use it because they wanted me to sign an agreement that I felt impinged on my freedom of speech-- and, a laptop (even one of the minis) would be too much to carry with all the other stuff I have to take for overnight in the center.

What I would like to see improved is the chairs (I have blogged extensively on the these torture devices), more cable stations (we have about 10 right now, not quite enough that's interesting for spending 24 hours a week on dialysis-- at night, no less), reasonable temperature control (three blankets is a bit much) and privacy.

Privacy is one of the biggest issues for me because 1) I don't want anyone seeing me while I'm being treated other than staff or family, 2) I don't want to see anyone else being treated (especially if they have the tendency to "die" almost every treatment), and 3) I'm doing nocturnal-- if I wanted everyone to see me while I'm sleeping I would invite them to cuddle up in my chair with me.

I met a design team (architect and interior design professor) at a work event and asked the professor about having one of his classes work up an ideal nocturnal dialysis design. His response was weak-- and so was that of the doctor who is running the study I'm participating in. This was disappointing because there would not be any cost to the center to have a design worked up, and the professor could have a whole new project for his students to work on (it would be easy enough to incorporate our needs into the objectives for student work-- especially since designing a "chair" is one of the main tasks).

Change comes slowly to the dialysis community. The change I see coming on the soonest is that I'm going to find a way to not have to stay on dialysis, hehehe. That will probably come long before a comfy chair or adequate partitions!

Nitey nite...

Treasure/Michelle