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This page is about David's life on dialysis. I have changed to past tense and updated, but otherwise left as was. At the end of this page find links to other dialysis pages, which may be of interest to you. |
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If you are on dialysis, please don't be discouraged!
David had 23 years on dialysis. Because of the problems caused by having started dialysis so lang ago, when it was nowhere near as good as today, his death was a release for him. |
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David was a typical "bushie" = Australian derivative for people who seem attuned with the "bush"= Australian outback. He was blond, blue eyed, weather beaten, clever, bunches of humor and a repertoire of great outback stories! - and never at a loss on "how to fix something" or do things his way. |
He had a great talent for listening (even if he did not really pay attention, - sometimes! :-). He has always supported everything I do, from buying my looms to supplying my yarn stash and getting spinning wheels, etc. and has faithfully driven me (I am not allowed to drive a car) any place we needed to go. He used to do the shopping for me, and took turns at cooking and dish washing, and helped with the vegy garden,- while he was able to do so!! David used to work with me. He learned how to weave tapestry too. He wove a sampler, spend hours helping to prepare yarns for weaving and helping out with housework to give me more time to work. David also learned spinning and did very well, selling a few jumper lots of his hand spun wool. He used to make all the frames for the DIYloom too and always helped out at workshops. |
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Eventually we did not have to stay in Adelaide (the capital city of South Australia) and we got a cottage with 3 1/2 acres about 150 km from Adelaide. We had a flock of Angora-goats, dogs, cats, choocks (translated for non Australians = chickens) and planted over 70 trees and watched them grow. On the photo, David is bottle feeding 2 angora-mohair kids, with Vera managing one.(1989) |
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After moving back to Adelaide I retired from doing Home-dialysis after nearly 20 years. David was dialysing at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. See pic, David on dialysis, to the right with glasses. Transplants are considered to be the solution and dialysis is usually viewed primarily as an interim measure. David's first transplant did not work. His second transplant in 1990 also failed. David needed a triple bypass operation one year later and could not attempt another transplant after that. From the start of 2002 David had changed from the 3 times a week 4 1/2 hours dialysis to dialysing every day for 2 1/2 hours (except for Monday's). Because of the long years on dialysis, his heart could not take the longer times in between dialysis. He also got a brand new pace maker which worked very well for him, and he was hoping for a few more years to come! |
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In September 2002 David needed a Gall bladder operation and nearly died after that, but miraculously recovered. He was sure all the prayers from kind and caring people on the net had made the difference! In the following year he never regained his weight, stayed at 52kg and grew really frail. By that time he was on a fair amount of pain killers because of suffering from Osteoporosis and his entire life ended up revolved around the daily dialysis. |
David started having problems with the circulation in his legs. He could walk only with difficulties. There was nothing that could be done about it and there is also an immense amount of pain involved, Usually amputation is the only way out, because of David's Osteoporosis there was no chance of it working. Because of the 23 years of dialysis David's body was like that of a 91 year old man. Taking all David's medical problems into account, the specialists advised to stop dialysis. David made the decision on the 9th of November 2003 and died peacefully, free of pain on November 13, early in the morning. 3 weeks and 4 days before his 57 th Birthday. |