High street tech buys that are improving my home dialysis experience
Steve Hewitt
I’m not a very techy person - DVD players passed me by. I was gifted a Blue Ray Player and used it once. I never had an iPod and haven't got an iPhone. The only gaming system that's been in the house was a mega drive II when the kids were little but they weren't really into it either so it never got upgraded. But all of a sudden I am getting more and more tech to ease some of the issues I have come across during home dialysis.
I have been doing home haemodialysis for three years. When I started, I opted for treatment on six days and did my treatment solo while my wife was out at work. This meant I had to leave the front door unlocked so that if I had a problem someone could get in and help me. This made me feel extremely vulnerable, because if an intruder came in – well, it wouldn’t take much of a confrontation for me to be in dire straits.
It has become less of a problem now because I switched to nocturnal last year. My wife is now home when I have my treatment and for 15 months she’s been working from home because of the pandemic. That’s going to revert back sooner or later however, and if my nurse is wanting to take bloods or add drugs into the treatment - or even just give me some training or a review while I’m hooked up to dialysis - I switch back to days temporarily so that it fits with her work schedule.
Against this backdrop we’ve made some recent purchases:
The first thing we bought was a smart speaker – Our thinking was that I like to listen to music but cannot reach the radio to change stations or volume once I’m connected to the dialysis machine. With the smart speaker being voice activated that’s a problem solved. Its real benefit showed up the first time I forgot to turn it on before washing my hands – not a problem: ‘Alexa – play some rock music’ - job done & hands still hygienically clean! The charging base means it can come out into the garden with us during non-treatment times and it’s brought a ton of new enjoyment to the outside as a bonus. It also comes into the bathroom while I shower or sort my dressings - or anywhere I want - so long as it’s in range of our Wi-Fi network.
Our next purchase was a video door bell – it connects to the smart speaker and my mobile phone so I can see who’s at the door - and more importantly speak to them from the treatment chair. Our house has a lockable exterior door that leads to an entrance porch with a second lockable door into the house. This has been a great success as we can now instruct for any parcel deliveries to be left in the porch and the house is still secure. We’ve even been away from the house and told a delivery driver where to leave parcels. That’s a huge improvement to me shouting out through the window ‘I can't get to the door!’. In dialysis terms, it means I can speak to a nurse or paramedic without leaving the chair - but of course, it still left the hurdle of the locked door to be overcome.
We’ve managed that with a key safe mounted on the wall in the porch – so now I can give the code to someone at the door so they can get access while feeling safe and secure. This combination of high and low tech has worked really well. My nurse has the security code in her file so she can open the door if she needs to get in while I am on treatment. It has also had a bonus result – I can go out for a walk and not have to take keys with me as there’s a key always available when I get back home. We’ve since doubled up on the key safe and have an outside one hidden behind a drainpipe with both the exterior door key and the interior door key in it.
The options include a display monitor on the smart speaker which shows access to our property. It detects motion approaching the doorbell so now we can see who’s coming to the door before they get to it. It is connected to our other devices which has effectively created a voice activated intercom system through the house, all of them can answer the video doorbell ...it also means the house can be bouncing with music. There is a downside of course – my four year old granddaughter doesn't like my music and tells Alexa to ‘play Frozen’ or ‘play Moana’ on entering the house!
We’ve added some of the lights to the network too – it’s so easy hook up, get into bed for nocturnal treatment and say ‘Alexa turn the treatment room lights off’ - no stretching, no touching, and out the lights go. If we’re out at night, as we get to the drive my wife turns on the porch lights from her phone as I park the car so we’re not getting out into the dark.
Moving away from access & entertainment (but only briefly) and onto cleaning – we’ve added a robot cleaner – not the roomba made famous in Breaking Bad – but a purchase inspired by it - we call ours Jesse and it too is connected to the network so the command ‘Alexa - start Jesse working’ sets the cleaner off around the house. This is a god-send on the days when I don’t feel up to doing the cleaning - it still gets done.
Finally our last buy with big impact has been a steam mop– it gets the treatment room floor (lino flooring in the UK - I think it’s called oilcloth in the USA) hygienically clean but also breaks down to a handheld cleaner that I’ve found has been brilliant for cleaning the machine. The steam gets into all the nooks & crannies I struggle to get into with a cleaning cloth & does a brilliant job especially dealing with the crust that builds up around the bicarb ports. Sadly at the moment, this is not connected to the network - meaning I have to get up and actually do it…but a man can dream.
