16) Sessions and Sets

Monday

El Milagro: "If things are going to go wrong, they go wrong on Mondays" Monica said, as she seated me over an hour late this afternoon. Who knows exactly what happened to make them over an hour late? In the waiting room with the other people waiting for their chairs, there were rumors about someone going to the hospital and that slowing things down. According to Wilma and Diane it was a combination of low staffing, lab day, setting me up in the wrong chair, and running late all day. I settled in for a long session, knowing it would probably by 9 before I got home.

What with the folk festival and coming for dialysis at all kinds of strange times, I haven’t been settled enough to keep up with these posts. So, here are some impressions from the last three sessions.

1) Going in for the early morning sessions isn’t going to work for me. Mostly, I’ve been wiped out afterwards, making it nearly impossible to focus enough to work at my job. I think I need a good rest after dialysis. When I go in the afternoon and can hang out relaxing at home afterwards, I feel great the next day.

2) Phyllis and I have talked about my feeling wiped out and she agrees that some people just need time to rest afterwards. She said that most working people come in the afternoons, which I swear is the exact opposite of what someone said when I started dialysis.

3) The guy who brings in the breakfast tacos for the early morning dialysis patients isn’t that good a cook: his chorizo & egg tacos lack taste and have the consistency of mush.

4) It was nice to settle in for a good nap at dialysis in the morning. I don’t think I’d ever be able to actually work on the lap top there in the mornings, although I have yet to take the lap top in the afternoons either.

So, I'm going back to TTS sessions at 3 pm and that's that.

Kerrville Folk Festival Report: I was feeling much better for the most part at the festival this year. Last year I missed two of the three weekends because of a low blood count. Many of the people who know my situation at the festival mentioned that I had more color in my face this year and looked generally healthier. I had written up some tags with my blog address so I could give them out to people that I only see at the festival; adding readers to these posts. Basically, I really was happy that I had switched my dialysis schedule around so I could go for two weekends, and although Lizzie would like to go again this weekend, I think I’ll be getting back on my regular schedule and have a weekend at home for a change. The highlights of the 35th KFF for me were hearing sets of Matt Anderson, Billy Jonas, Guy Clark, Thad Beckman, Terri Hendrix, and Ray Wiley Hubbard. It was a blues festival this year, it seems. Also, as usual, I enjoyed the camaraderie of working on the kitchen krew with my friends Merriesa and Rick, Andrea, Brian, Cari, and Lizzie. I’ll be back.

NOTE: From the June, 2006 Texas Monthly*
Here’s Looking at You, Kidney
How and why I became an organ donor— and how I kept people from talking me out of it.
by Virginia Postrel
UNTIL LAST NOVEMBER, I’D NEVER THOUGHT about being a kidney donor. I hadn’t known anyone with kidney disease, and like most people, I hadn’t filled out an organ donation form when I’d gotten my driver’s license. I’d never even donated blood. That all changed after I ran into a friend and asked, “How’s Sally?” I got an unexpected answer: “She’s . . . all right,” in a tone that made it clear she was most definitely not all right.
(Read the rest in the curent Texas Monthly!)

* http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2006-06-01/postrel