Last night was a comedy of errors regarding my Liberty Cycler. To start off, upon initial setup, the cycler refused to acknowledge first that a 6 L bag was installed on the heater tray, then that an additional 6-liter bag was installed on white cap one, the first additional source of dialysis fluid. Most of you with experience have seen this happen and it’s usually caused by the bag cones not being properly “broken.” In the case last night, I broke them six ways from Sunday and ALSO changed out both bags to no avail. The Cycler just would not recognize that it in fact had not only bags, but adequate bags for my prescription.
I called the duty nurse who happened to be my dialysis nurse. I had been to labs and she suggested that perhaps I had not properly responded to the setup question as to what bag was installed on the heater tray. The only way out of this was to start all over. So I rebooted the cycler and this time it recognized the bags properly. Nothing was incorrect in the setup so it leads me to the conclusion that the Cycler had a glitch in the initial setup, a first for me
So everything went as it should during the night until it didn’t. At about 6 AM on the last fill, I was awakened to a loud “Stop” alarm telling me in red that there was not enough fluid in the heater tray bag. Well, there was no fluid in it per usual but plenty in the bag on line one, the second bag. It was not full so some had been used out of it during the night. I set and reset the alarm three times before I swapped out the empty heater tray bag for the second bag and the Cycler immediately started pumping 77 F fluid into my stomach liner. Felt a little weird but at least it went on. I finished my treatment without any more excitement.
So is it the Cycler, the cassette, or ?? I debated calling “tech support” but concluded that although I would be documenting Cycler faults, after spending large amounts of my time on the phone answering inane questions there would be no resolution. However, if it happens tonight, stand by.
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