Niel Flamm Niel Flamm

Proof It Was Time for a New Dialysis Backpack 🎒

Yesterday I purchased a new backpack for dialysis, and today was its first trip to the clinic.

Could I have used my old backpack a little longer? Maybe. But after looking at it, the answer became pretty clear. The seams were ripping, and it was only a matter of time before it failed. It wasn't a case of wanting a new backpack—it was a case of needing one.

My dialysis backpack carries my blanket, pillow, and other essentials three mornings a week. The last thing I want is for the seams to split while I'm walking into or out of the clinic, leaving everything on the ground in the middle of the swampy Lowcountry heat and humidity.

The old backpack served me well, but this is proof that replacing it wasn't an impulse purchase. Sometimes the smartest time to replace something is before it completely falls apart.

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Niel Flamm Niel Flamm

Monthly Dialysis Labs: A Surprising Number I Haven't Seen Since 2025

Every month during dialysis, I have a full set of lab work done. The nice part? No extra needle stick. The blood is drawn directly through the dialysis tubing while I'm already connected.

The monthly labs help monitor many aspects of living with End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), including:

  • Potassium – helps reduce the risk of dangerous heart rhythm problems.

  • Creatinine – shows how well my kidneys are filtering waste.

  • Phosphorus – high levels can pull calcium from the bones, while levels that are too low can affect oxygen delivery to muscles and lead to weakness.

  • Iron

  • Hemoglobin

  • Sodium

  • Chloride

  • Carbon Dioxide

  • Total Serum Protein

  • Albumin

  • Magnesium

  • Platelet Count

  • White Blood Cell Count

The number I paid the closest attention to this month was BUN (Blood Urea Nitrogen).

Here's the simple version. When we eat protein, our bodies break it down, producing ammonia, which is toxic. The liver converts that ammonia into urea. Urea travels through the bloodstream to the kidneys, where healthy kidneys filter it into urine.

With ESRD, that process doesn't work very well, so BUN levels can rise because waste isn't being removed efficiently.

During dialysis, my care team measures BUN before treatment and after treatment to see how effectively the dialysis removes that waste.

When I reviewed my results on Saturday, July 18, something caught my attention.

For the first time, when my monthly labs were tracked starting in October 2025, my pre-dialysis BUN was in the normal (green) range.

Even more interesting, my post-dialysis BUN wasn't dramatically lower. Normally, I'd expect to see a much bigger drop after treatment.

So now I'm left with a few questions:

  • Are my kidneys somehow recovering a little?

  • Was this simply an unusually good month?

  • Did my diet or hydration affect the result?

  • Or was it just one of those lab quirks that occasionally happens?

The answer is... I don't know.

One lab result doesn't establish a trend, especially with ESRD. But after months of watching these numbers, seeing that green result definitely made me stop and smile.

I'll be watching closely next month to see whether this was the beginning of a trend or simply a one-time surprise.

Either way, I'll keep sharing the journey.

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