Living Day-to-Day with Kidney Dialysis

As he has for the last seven years, Tony Robinson, 47, heads straight from work on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons to a nearby hemodialysis center in Orlando, Fla.

A nurse gives him a checkup, then Robinson settles into one of the recliners circling the room. Propping his left arm up, he allows a technician to slip two needles into blood vessels near his wrist. The needles--one to capture the blood and the other to return it--are attached to plastic tubes leading to a dialysis machine beside the chair.

For the next three hours, this device, which looks like a tall, narrow, automated teller machine, removes wastes and extra fluid from Robinson's blood. He passes the hours by reading, watching the evening news, and sometimes dozing.