They seldom go out, but they often take buckets of pure water home. This aroused the curiosity of the local people. Some people say that men have a strange disease and should take a bath with pure water.
But Qin Yifan, the water delivery worker, doesn't think so. Since she went to work in the waterworks, she has delivered water to that family every week. She knows that this is a poor family, and they seldom see meat in their meals. That man is really sick, too. His face is dark and he walks with a limp. She didn't believe that the poor man would take a bath with pure water at all.
Bottled water needs to be moved to the second floor. The man has no strength, so he has to rely on Qin Yifan for help. She had to help him put a bucket of water on the wooden frame. There are some pipes hanging on the wooden frame, beside which there are a bunch of salt water bottles, a blue machine and three stainless steel pot. There is a big wooden scale opposite the bed-such a wooden scale is rare now.
On one occasion, Qin Yifan finally couldn't help it. "What's the use of this water?" She asked cautiously.
"Fill up the medicine." The man's face fell and he only said two words.
The man who uses pure water to "dispense medicine" is Hu, a patient with end-stage renal failure (commonly known as uremia, an incurable disease). He built a hemodialysis machine and miraculously survived for 13 years, far exceeding the average dialysis survival time of uremia patients.
Expensive hemodialysis
A research report in 2008 pointed out that the total number of dialysis patients in China has exceeded100000, and the annual expenditure for dialysis treatment is close to1000, but most patients are kept out of the hemodialysis room of the hospital for economic reasons.
In order to avoid getting himself into trouble, Hu kept this secret carefully 13 years. In July 20 12, he changed his mind. With the help of used computers, he published the secret of hemodialysis online.
The video of18min 1 1 sec shows a miracle: a uremia patient, without the help of any medical staff, does hemodialysis treatment for himself with the most primitive materials and methods in the most humble environment-a high-end alternative medical technology.
Hemodialysis, as one of the great inventions in medical history, was born about 100 years ago. Its appearance stems from a doctor's good wish: to make an artificial kidney that runs in vitro to replace the human kidney, thus prolonging the lives of those uremic patients.
Nowadays, the ideal has become a reality, and artificial kidney has become the most mature medical alternative technology. According to the "dispersion" principle in physics, a blood channel is established outside the human body. The blood drawn by the patient exchanges substances with dialysate prepared by simulating the internal environment of the human body through a special device, so as to discharge metabolic waste and excess water in the body.
But doing it is different. It took 14 years from the animal experiment to the treatment of the first patient, and it took another 40 years to popularize hemodialysis as a routine and effective measure to prolong the life of uremia patients.
Although hemodialysis technology is quite mature in medicine, it is extremely expensive. In China, the cost of dialysis is higher than that in 400 yuan, and a patient needs dialysis three times a week.
But they only account for 10% of the total number of patients who need dialysis, and most of them are kept out of the hemodialysis room of the hospital for economic reasons.
In 2009, the self-service dialysis room in Tongzhou, Beijing was banned, which caused a sensation throughout the country. Unable to pay high medical expenses, 10 patients with basic diseases used three second-hand dialysis machines to save themselves, but they were banned by law enforcement officers in the name of violating the Regulations on the Administration of Medical Institutions and took away their "kidneys" for survival. Unwilling to wait for death, but unable to save themselves, has become a cruel and dilemma reality for poor patients.
From 65438 to 0993, Hu, a junior in Nanjing Institute of Meteorology, was diagnosed with uremia and received hemodialysis treatment in this hospital for 6 years. Although schools, society, relatives and friends all provided help, they still spent all their savings at home.
Uremic patients like Hu, except for a few lucky ones who can exchange kidneys, mostly rely on dialysis (including hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis, mainly hemodialysis) to maintain their lives. Once out of dialysis, they won't live for more than a month.
During hemodialysis in the hospital, Hu witnessed the tragedies of many uremic patients. One of the patients, Wang Jianhua, has a good family, but after three years of dialysis, he still has money and people.
It is said that the money spent by Wang Jianhua's family can build a building in the country. His health is getting worse and worse because he has no money for hemodialysis. At the end of that year, his family scraped together the last sum of money and took him to the hospital. After the new year, he died.
Without Hu's later self-help, his fate would be the same. "I never thought I could live so long." Hu told Southern Weekend reporter.
Build a kidney
Hu plans to build his own hemodialysis machine and move it to his home-specifically, to a toilet less than five square meters at home. Almost everyone thinks the young man is crazy.
The idea of dialysis at home originated in 1996. At that time, Hu carefully read Blood Purification written by Wang Zhigang, a famous nephrologist, and found that hemodialysis was not mysterious at all, but just applied some scientific principles learned in high school to people. Moreover, home hemodialysis has long existed abroad.
"What really works in hemodialysis is actually a dialyzer rather than a hemodialysis machine. The hemodialysis machine is only an auxiliary dialyzer. " Nonsense, "but most patients don't understand this basic truth."
An imported dialyzer is about 100 yuan. However, the price of an imported hemodialysis machine is as high as several hundred thousand, which is an important factor supporting the high price of hemodialysis. In addition, disposable consumables are also one of the reasons for the high price of hemodialysis.
Hu's approach is: buy your own dialyzer, reuse it as much as possible (usually 8 times), and reduce the single cost to about 10 yuan; Buy powder and purified water to prepare dialysate; Buy your own salt water to flush the pipeline and buy your own heparin. These three items add up to about fifty yuan.
In addition, the cost of blood transfusion and skin tube has also been greatly reduced. Generally speaking, the cost of self-service dialysis is less than that of 60 yuan, only one eighth of that of hospital hemodialysis. You need to have hemodialysis 13 times a month, and the total cost is less than 1000 yuan.
This 5000 yuan blood pump is Hu's most expensive equipment. In order to save costs, Hu even tried to build one himself, but he finally found that it was beyond his ability.
He also tried to install a water treatment system at a cost of 1000 yuan. If it works, he won't have to buy pure water. However, due to water quality problems, this attempt failed.
When Hu first told the doctor what he thought, almost everyone thought the young man was crazy. Isn't it?
Hemodialysis has long been the representative of high-tech medical means. Hospitals need strict examination and approval before establishing hemodialysis rooms. In addition to expensive equipment, hemodialysis room must be operated by strictly trained medical staff to achieve therapeutic effect.
Because blood is circulated outside the body, the hemodialysis room is usually the place with the highest disinfection requirements outside the operating room. Even so, hemodialysis accidents cannot be completely avoided.
Hepatitis C infection in hemodialysis patients has been reported frequently. The Ministry of Health issued a special document on hemodialysis on 20 10 to ensure the quality and medical safety of hemodialysis.
However, Hu intends to move all this to his own home-specifically, to the toilet less than five square meters at home (in winter, in order to save heating costs, Hu will move the dialysis site from the second floor to the toilet on the first floor). Is there anything crazier than this in the world?
In fact, in the field of dialysis in China, there has always been a deep-rooted concept: dialysis treatment is inscrutable and full of risks, and can only be carried out in hospitals, mainly large hospitals.
Hu wants to live, but he has no money. The conditions he can rely on are: a blood pump, a hollow fiber dialyzer, two puncture needles, several tubes, several barrels of pure water, pasteurized water, formalin disinfectant, and his 8 1 year-old mother.
On the afternoon of March 3 1999, Hu, who had been brewing for a long time, began his first hemodialysis test. He took out the materials prepared before 1996, prepared the liquid, intubated and washed them. In his eyes, everything is no different from when he was doing hemodialysis in the hospital. He has a plan.
The only concern is blood vessel puncture. In the initial stage of hospital dialysis, most of the operations were done by Hu himself, and only the puncture needed the help of the nurse.
Unexpectedly, the first puncture was successful. Seeing his blood instantly enter the dialyzer through the pipe, Hu knew he could live.
However, this is the first time. Hu is busy weighing water, preparing liquid and giving injections, which is not a big problem. His first hemodialysis was more than an hour longer than usual, and it didn't end until the evening.
As in the case of 13, every time he gives himself hemodialysis, Hu is not accompanied by any professional medical staff, only his mother. "I'm afraid he will die in front of me." The old man told the Southern Weekend reporter.
Dance on the tip of a knife
When Han Lianggen and Hu Yi learned hemodialysis, they drove motorcycles to the hospital to "show off their skills", which made doctors lose face. As a result, he reported his death shortly after hemodialysis at home. Since then, no one has dared to follow Hu Song's literature.
Except for the blood pump and cylindrical dialyzer used to provide power, other parts of Hu's hemodialysis machine are made by indigenous methods: Hu buys dialysis powder himself and uses three stainless steel pot to make dialysate; He heated it with an induction cooker and weighed it with that big scale. He punctured himself, intubated himself, prepared dialysate A and B, injected heparin himself, washed and disinfected himself, and controlled the amount of dehydration himself.
What makes dialysis patients extremely curious is the last point, because the dehydration amount of each patient during dialysis is strictly controlled by hemodialysis machine. Too much or too little will make patients feel uncomfortable. However, Hu has been artificially adjusted-usually when he feels dizzy and tinnitus, he realizes that the amount of dehydration is enough.
Another surprising fact is that during the hemodialysis of 13 years, Hu never used erythropoietin, a drug that promotes erythropoiesis in the blood. This drug is usually regarded as the basic drug for dialysis patients.
Zhou Guangda, former deputy chief physician of urology in the Second Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, analyzed that the reason was that Hu had some cysts (acquired renal cysts) on his diseased kidney. According to his experience, these cysts can produce erythropoietin.
Due to various complications, hemodialysis patients need to take other drugs, which are also expensive, and some of them cannot be reimbursed through medical insurance. Hu replaced it with the cheapest drugs, such as aspirin and nifedipine for two or three yuan a box. He also takes industrial calcium carbonate sold by weight to supplement calcium (elements) lost in his body.
Hu's blood drawing method reminds Zhou Guangda of the situation thirty years ago. The hemodialysis machine at that time was not as advanced as it is now. Dialysis rooms in some small hospitals are similar to Hu's practice. At present, most operations of hemodialysis are automatically controlled by instruments, and various advanced and expensive drugs are also available.
In the eyes of the chief physician (pseudonym) in the Department of Nephrology of a 3A hospital, Hu is dancing on the tip of a knife. In her view, when doing hemodialysis, because of the need to establish vascular channels in vitro, the dialysate must be accurately prepared to simulate the internal environment of the human body. The dialysis process is full of risks, and accidents may occur if you are not careful.
Sun Hua said that regardless of the equipment limitations, the only risks to be avoided in dialysis at home include infection, air embolism, abnormal dialysate concentration and inaccurate heparin dosage. "For a patient, it is really unimaginable to be able to do this."
What I don't understand is that if he really dances on the tip of a knife, how can Hu jump 13? "That's awesome!" That's all she can explain.
During 13' s dialysis career, Hu had only one accident. Once he started dialysis, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in the eye of a needle. When he looked again, the blood in the test tube turned into the color of wine. Hu realized that he had encountered the most dangerous complication in dialysis: hemolysis caused by abnormal dialysate concentration. Then stop dialysis immediately and replace the dialysate.
Hu later recalled that he should have confused the concentrations of dialysate A and B at that time.
Similar accidents, Zhou Guangda also met once in the hospital that year. At this time, the dialysis patient suddenly exclaimed and convulsed all over. Later, it was found that the proportional pump used by hemodialysis machine to automatically configure dialysate concentration was out of balance.
Not everyone is as lucky as Hu. At the end of 2005, a uremia patient named Guo Henggen followed Hu's example and set up a set of equipment for hemodialysis at home. But he only lived three months longer.
Another man named Han Lianggen has the same fate. At first, he wanted to learn from Guo Henggen, but he died before learning from Guo, so he had to find Hu again.
Since then, no one has dared to follow Hu Song's literature.
Nevertheless, in Hu's view, the risk of dialysis is exaggerated. "As long as you have a high school culture, understand the basic principles of dialysis, and pay attention to observation while doing it according to the operating specifications, nothing will happen." Hu said, "The main reason why these two people had an accident was that they were uneducated and not modest."
There are also uremia patients who want to use Hu's equipment to help them do hemodialysis and give him proper remuneration. Hu refused. "I can do it for myself or teach others, but I can't do it for others," nonsense. "If something goes wrong, I'll be in trouble."
All these patients died in despair. What Hu doesn't understand is that one of them has a certain culture. His sister is a nurse and his father is a teacher. It is said that he is completely literate and made it by himself. But I would rather die than try it myself.
In a sense, Hu's revelation of the secret of penetrating blood stems from his fear of fate. According to him, every "2" year in life will always face a disaster: 1982, he got acute nephritis; 1992, the nephritis that was not completely cured deteriorated into uremia; In July 2002, he accidentally fell and became disabled. Four months later, my father died of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage.
20 12, another year with "2" came, and he had a premonition that this would be another threshold of life. He doesn't believe in "the end of the world", but he is worried about another bad luck.
Hu urgently needs outside help. The urgent problem he faced was that his mother, who had been taking care of him, began to fall short. She is 8 1 year-old, and she is the only support for her son.
Just like 13 years ago, he decided to do hemodialysis at home, and Hu decided to "throw caution to the wind" again.
Shortly after Hu uploaded the video to the Internet, Jinghua exposed a piece of news about hemodialysis: Before that, motorcycle drivers who had exhausted their family wealth used fake official seals to do hemodialysis in the hospital for four years for free in order to save the life of their uremic wife. However, the matter finally came to light and Liao Dan was arrested on suspicion of fraud.
This incident caused an uproar. Liao Dan is called "the biggest liar" in history. All walks of life helped. Liao Dan was finally sentenced to probation, and his wife received a huge rescue fund.
Hu was secretly glad to see the news. He had hoped that after his own affairs went online, he could be like the Liao couple, "there is a silver lining behind the dark clouds."
The result disappointed him. He has only 50 fans in Weibo, and the video forwarding volume is less than double digits. But his dialysis expert in Aite didn't respond. A professional forum even deleted the video he posted.
In fact, only people in dialysis circles can understand his miracle. However, their unusual silence gradually made Hu understand that the dialysis community probably didn't want outsiders to know too much.
Every "2" bad luck comes again. On 2012165438+10/7, Hu's mother was hospitalized for septicemia. This is the first time that she/kloc-left Hu in 0/3 years. Hu is even more helpless. He said that he had planned to make a news when he was free-to report to the Health Bureau himself and let the other party "block" his hemodialysis room. ?