I am just overwhelmed with the amount of the supplies necessary for peritoneal dialysis. I am told they cannot be stored in the garage so I have to find a place in the house. What are your home setups like?
Ruby, When I first started PD, the solution boxes were in the garage until we made room in the house.(It was also summer! I live in Minnesota.) When the weather turned cold we moved the solution boxes to the laundry room next to the kitchen on the main floor of the house. By that time I wanted my car in the garage! My other supplies are in my bedroom. I have a cabinet next to my bed that I have for my cycler that has enough room in it for the cycler supplies. Cleaning supplies and dressings are on my dresser. I agree that the suppies take up a lot of space! I have heard that some people line the walls of their bedrooms with supplies and others use a dedicated closet. You will find the space somewhere, and Good Luck with PD.
We will be lining the bedroom of the person we care for’s bedroom. Our small home has little storage. We do not have a garage or many closets and a damp moldy basement.
Cthreehorses
Hi everyone,
I too have been trying to find storage solutions for all those dialysis supplies. My mother dialyses at her home and she lives in a one-bedroom apartment so the majority of her supplies are stored in her livingroom, the rest are in her bedroom. When she gets a fresh shipment of supplies her apartment looks like a warehouse.
I gave her a room divider with 3 panels and realized that it wasn’t enough to block the view of those ugly cardboard boxes, plus the divider makes her tiny livingroom look even more tiny. I suggested that she empty the boxes and get some sort of cabinet or shelving system to place the dialysis bags in. She told me that someone at Baxter advised her against removing the bags from the boxes way ahead of time in case she ever had to return them to the warehouse. Now we are back to square one on how to disguise those boxes. Does anyone out there have any practical storage ideas?
Thanks,
Ruth
You should see my small apartment after I get my monthly delivery of hemodialysis concentrate jugs - and that’s actually fewer boxes than you get for PD. I have boxes lining the hallway between living room and bedroom where I do my dialysis, I have a pile of boxes right near the living room. So it looks like a warehouse… who cares. What’s more important, my treatment or the apartment looking neat and tidy?
Pierre
Foundation for IgA Nephropathy
www.igan.ca
Could you stack the boxes and take some kind of cheery material and throw it over the boxes to them it look like “art” or a wall decoration?
That’s a great idea Ms. Witten. I will run it by my mother.
Thanks,
Ruth
Yes when we did PD the boxes were unreal. We had “eves” upstairs and all were labeled with color codes. We were lucky in that it was a two story house, (small) and some boxes ended up in the basement. Small supplies were kept in the bedroom. In later years, while cleaning out the basement, I found 20 or so boxes still left over. (The PD patient had passed away) Great for watering plants however, and the garden. I guess it was the nutrients or something. Read about it in Poignant Moments coming soon.
Sometimes a company will deliver twice a month instead of once, so there are only half as many supplies to deal with at a time. Might be worth asking…
My mother used to get her supplies twice a month but the powers that be decided that it wasn’t cost effective so the delivery schedule was changed to once a month. 