My Alien Vein Named Thor

The title sounds like some scary fiction but this is a real part of my life story. In fact, a very vital part of me now that my life kind of depends on it. My left hand has been my Achilles' Heel for a year and a half now. I can't use it for doing chores anymore. I can't play sports or lift things because my left arm must be protected at all times. My left arm is where my fistula is, my "alien vein."

My fistula is my lifeline, an access for me to be hooked to the dialysis machine. Dialysis is the life support treatment for kidney failure patients like me. It cleanses my blood of toxins since my kidneys can't do it anymore. According to medical journals, dialysis only does 10% of the functions of a real kidney. And unlike a kidney that does the cleansing real time, we just do dialysis 2-3x a week. So all our organs actually swim in toxins 24/7, the reason we deteriorate in all aspects faster than most people.

Going back to my "alien vein" or fistula, it's one of the most vulnerable parts of my body now. Without it, I can't be hooked to a dialysis machine, thus I will die. Sounds scary AF, yes it is. Before I got this fistula, they hooked me up to the machine with an IJ catheter on my neck. That actually means that there was a tube stuffed into a hole in my neck that goes into the big vein just above my heart. Scary and demoralizing times for me when I had it. I felt so helpless with that dangling tube. I had it for 2 months and I wasn't bathing normal.

While I had the tube on my neck, I underwent an operation for the fistula. What the doctor did was join a vein and an artery in my left upper arm, my non-dominant arm. I guess it's done so that the blood will gush into the tubes when they stick the needles that will hook us to the dialysis machine. The fistula is the spot where they stick 2 needles during dialysis, one line going out to the machine while the other one is the line from the machine going back to the body. So the blood goes out from the fistula and then gets cleansed by the machine and then it goes back through the other line back into the body. For four long hours, it cycles that way. I have to sit almost unmoving on a lazyboy like this moment that I'm writing this. I am only using one hand on the laptop to make this post.

I cannot use my left hand for many things, not even to open a door. I don't want my fistula to go bad, because it can actually die. Yes, a fistula dies. When that happens they will have to stick a tube to my neck again for me to get dialysis and make another fistula, but this time on my dominant hand. I do not want that to happen. Some people suffer so much when their fistula dies, because catheters or those other accesses that involves tubes on the neck (IJ catheter) or the one on the chest (permanent catheter) are prone to infections. Some people aren't so fortunate, their fistula keeps dying for many reasons that they lose all access for fistula and catheters that the doctor puts the catheter tube on their left or right thigh (femoral catheter). Terrible. I pray everyday it doesn't happen.

I call my fistula an "alien vein" because it makes me unique somehow. It was my friend's idea to call it that but I find it cool so I adapted it. It pulsates and throbs like crazy since I had it. Actually, that's the indication that it's alive. If it's not doing that, then it means trouble. It's like I have a beating heart in my arm. Sometimes when I'm bored, I just ask people who have no idea about it to touch it lightly and I find it funny when they jolt and gasp and get curious what's going on. There was this one time, we had a family event, I asked my uncle to touch it and he was holding this plastic cup on his other hand, he dropped the cup! I had a good laugh then.

I have this habit of naming things that gives me too much emotions or just any inanimate things that are dear to me. This fistula is one of them, I named it Thor. I named it Thor because I can imagine lightning bolts on it when it throbs like crazy when my blood pressure is high.

Meet my "Thor."

Notice the scar for the Fistula Creation Procedure.

Notice the tiny scars of the needles marks.

Ooops! That's me and my Thor, the sparkie fistula!

Take good care of your health... because no one else will.

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