Dialysis question; is this an unusual situation?

I started hemodialysis a few weeks ago. I am 65 years old. I have known this was my eventuality for several years as my kidney disease progressed. I am not a transplant candidate because I have other health issues. I have followed kidney diet strictly. Like many health care situations and care options money is a factor. I have worked two jobs to save money for when it was time to buy equipment. I am still working part-time. I investigated all of the options and the costs. I opted for home dialysis with my own equipment. It took about 8 weeks to get ready. Buying the equipment is like buying a new vehicle. I remodeled a room to use for my treatments. It’s expensive but I didn’t want to be in a clinic/treatment center with one overworked nurse and some undesirable people around. I value my personal space and privacy. I did not want to do peritoneal dialysis.

I have a registered nurse who is dialysis trained. She sets everything up for me, leaves and comes back later to unhook me, clean equipment etc. In the interim I have a 4th year nursing student who stays with me for any personal help I need. My PCP checks up on me regularly during the week.

Home dialysis is encouraged in many other countries. Having the equipment at home allows you to have an unscheduled treatment if needed. Higher level of hygiene.

Just my choice. I’m sure others find other options good for themselves.

Dialysis is is very tiring and also very boring.

What hospital is this? One my mom was at discouraged it, and made sure to mention she was to weak to go through it. Of course they made a lot of money off her before she passed.

Normally today (and in my old times in nursing dialysis was done in the hospital, and things were handled as they are in a hospital setting) patients receive dialysis in a place that, quite honestly does only that. Just as chemo patients used to receive chemo in a hospital bed and were treated as a patient, and today are in a "chair" or "lounger" for that time. And there is one nurse, that nurse being "clean" in that they are handling things that MUST remain clean, if not sterile. They are accessing ports that must be clean. And quite honestly there is no nurse aid, CNA, or other personnel roving around who can do changing of patients who were incontinent.
This is the sad state of affairs, but there is also the fact that, when I first went into nursing, dialysis was never done on the elderly. In fact it was seldom done, and was applied for, believe it or not, and those who were young, who had children who were young, and etc. were the "chosen ones".
I myself, having been lifelong in the medical area as an RN, would not receive dialysis. At a certain age, it is something that prolongs the agony of age, the indignity, the weakening and the loss. It is a personal decision. I wish that doctors spoke more with the elderly about what dialysis means to their lives. The three days they spend a week in that chair. The exhaustion. The limitations in diet.
I am so sorry your Mom is going through this, and you are witnessing it. At some point, given the compromise of the skin for those on dialysis, there will be skin breakdown and there will be ulcers that don't heal. It seems cruel and a torment, but it is the way places are staffed now, part of the military industrial complex, all about the flow of money, and little about the personal indignities and endangerments we see. I hope that you write a letter and demand an answer to this, but I am sad to honestly think it will not make a difference. Again, I am so sorry for the pain and indignity for your Mom, and the suffering for you the family being witness to it.