When Saline Becomes Gold: The Reality of Traveling With Home Hemodialysis

Labor Day weekend was supposed to be about relaxing, camping, and spending time with high school friends. Instead, we got a reminder that when you travel with home hemodialysis, even the smallest supply can become a very big problem.

We were about an hour and a half from home, enjoying our weekend, when Saturday afternoon came around and it was time to start setting up for Jimmie's treatment. Jimmie had taken Friday night off from dialysis so we could get to the campground, get settled, and enjoy some time with our friends. Our plan was to dialyze Saturday and then use Sunday as a driving day as we started making our way toward Florida.

Everything was going according to plan—until Jimmie couldn't find the saline. We searched the truck. Then we searched again. No saline. And suddenly, something as simple as a bag of saline became the biggest problem of our weekend.

It was getting close to 4 p.m., and we were 1½ hours from home. The thought of spending three hours of our weekend driving back home just to get saline was not exactly how we had planned to spend our holiday.

I started searching for a local dialysis center. Unfortunately, there was only one nearby, and it was only open three days a week. We called the closest hospital to see if we could obtain a bag of saline. We were told Jimmie would have to come into the hospital to be assessed. I understood their position, but from our perspective, it didn't make much sense. Jimmie was stable. He wasn't having an emergency. He didn't need medical evaluation. We simply needed a bag of saline for his home dialysis treatment—and there was no guarantee that even after going through the hospital process, we'd walk out with one.

This is one of those moments that people who don't live with home dialysis may never think about. Saline is like gold when you're a home hemodialysis patient traveling. You can have your machine. You can have your dialysate. You can have your supplies. You can have everything planned down to the smallest detail. But forget one critical item, and suddenly your entire treatment plan can be disrupted.

Could Jimmie have missed another treatment? Probably. But the bigger issue was that we were leaving the next morning and needed that day for driving. What looked like a simple missing supply could have completely changed our plans.

So, here's my lesson from this weekend:
1. If you're traveling with home hemodialysis, check your supplies before you leave—and then check them again.
2. Know exactly where your saline is. Make sure you have enough. And if you're traveling, know where the nearest dialysis center is and what days and hours they are actually open.
3. Don't assume that because a dialysis center exists nearby, you'll be able to get supplies when you need them.

Traveling with home dialysis gives patients an incredible amount of freedom, but that freedom comes with responsibility and planning. And sometimes, it means learning the hard way that something as simple as a bag of saline can be worth a whole lot more than you ever imagined.

Three hours of our weekend later, we had our saline. Lesson learned. Saline really is gold.