Ah hey thats nice!
Goats? :lol: …I mean whats special about goats? Why not horses!!! 
That would be nice to have a little farm up there… 
bobeleanor, Glad to hear your from PA. I live in NY but only 10 miles from the PA border. I know you could be miles from us if your downstate PA. but its nice to know someone in my neck of the woods so to speak is around. Got lots of relatives in PA.
Hey Marty
I live in Chester County Pa. I’m 40 mile outside of Phila. (west)
I don’t the room for horses the law states that you need some much ground for one horse. But I loved to have the space and the horses. We have a lot of people who ride , Amish for one , and a lot of people who just ride the trails.
bobeleanor 
Not even room for a pony? :?
I saw where there was a patient at another group looking for a clean unit and also home programs in Phil. area., especially NxStage. Can you tell me what the availabilty is there? Supposedly there are 40 units in the Phil. area which is a lot, is that right?
Hi Heather
What out naming company. The center that I trained in was at 6 and samson st. phila. Right across from the Liberty Bell complex. The people there were and are very good. It only took me 19 days to learn nxstage. The hard part was the first week.
bobeleanor
Hi Bobeleanor,
We are from Delaware County, PA & when ready my husband will also be going to the same center in Philadelphia where you trained because they have the NxStage.
It’s about 20 miles from us. Hate to drive into downtown Philly, but from what I’m reading we are lucky to have a NxStage training center so close.
I was glad to hear your good words about it.
We also live in the woods, 1 acre & have 7 cats & a dog, no birds.
Jane
Hi
You will like the people very much, they what very much to get people up and running fast. And after the my first week, it was a very fast. The first week was hard because it has been a long time since I had to deal with city traffic. But that became no problem once I got into setting up the machine and running on my own. Like I said the people are there are very good and it is a whole team input.
bobeleanor
This unit offers NxStage. Do any other units in the area offer home txs. on other model machines? Are there really 40 units in the Phil. area?
Heather, I put “Daily Home Hemodialysis” and the whole state of PA into the Home Dialysis Central Find a Center database (http://www.homedialysis.org/v1/centers/search.php). Here’s what I found:
– DaVita - Franklin Dialysis At Home (in Philadelphia). 150 S Independence W 101 Public Ledger Building. 800-244-0582.
– WellSpan Dialysis Center of York, 308 Saint Charles Way, 717-851-4123 (101 miles away from Philadelphia; Not quite 2 hours to drive)
– WellSpan Dialysis Center of Littlestown, 43 S. Columbus Ave. #100. 717-359-8110. (148 miles away from Philadelphia; about 2.5 hours)
Thank you, Dori. Re the 40 units, I was referring to in-center as well. A patient is moving to Phil. area and just wants to find a clean unit at first. So, really there is just one home program right in Phil. area and the other two programs are much farther away. I had looked at the HDC data base and did see this. I was curious about the 40 units. That sounds like a lot for a cty.
If you’re looking for clinics in Philly that offer in-center dialysis, you can look at the Dialysis Facility Compare database on the Medicare website.
http://www.medicare.gov/Dialysis/Home.asp
You can put in a zip code and a distance to travel or put in the city of Philly and see a list of all the clinics. There are actually 39 facilities in the city of Philadelphia. Within 10 miles of Philly, there are 47. You can compare clinics 10 at a time to see how many stations they have, when they were certified, what treatments they offer, etc. You can also look at clinical outcomes (dialysis adequacy, anemia management, survival) on a better than, average, or worse than rating compared with what would be expected statistically (see compare quality at the bottom of the listing).
I’m not sure how accurate the home modalities are because 2 years ago when we used the DFC database to start calling clinics for our database, about 25% of clinics told us they didn’t offer what DFC said for home treatments. I think you’re pretty safe using DFC for clinics offering in-center dialysis.
At Dialysis Compare, they list great suggestions for how to find a good unit. But I wish in the info. they give out on units, they included recent state survey results and patient satisfaction survey results so patients could get a true picture what a unit is like. The clinical results may look good, but unit can be kept freezing cold, no visitors allowed, no food, unclean, no infection control, no education etc. etc.
They list the phone numbers and I’d encourage patients to call or visit clinics before they choose one. If you find a clinic you like better than the one your doctor referred you to, you have to be willing to change doctors if your doctor doesn’t go to the other clinic.
bobeleanor.
Bob just a question, I see you run 2hrs 48 mins. on the NxStage and I think you use a catheter what Blood Pump Speed do you run at. We’re nocturnal patients and I like it BUT I think dad is having trouble because he gets so much heparin.
I was wondering how many times a week you do a treatment?
What type of problems does your dad have from Heparin, Marty?
Heparin too often causes healed wounds to start bleeding.
I think situations like that, wounds, or operations and using heparin needs to be managed carefully. Perhaps too much heparin?
Hi Marty
My blood pump sp is 450, my dialysate rate 7.0 my uf rate is 1.0. My filtration faction is 30 , I get 80ml of blood done. I work hard on keeping my wright under 1 to 1.5 kilos in between txs. I use 5cc of hep at start, and 2cc in each port at end over night. I do 6 days a week. and I hook up first thing in am . I set everything up night before, kits too.
bobeleanor