July 25, 2006
Tuesday
El Milagro: As I’m driving over here today, I feel as if I’m coming off vacation. I haven’t been here since Saturday… and that’s two days! It makes me chuckle to think that a two-day break from dialysis gives me some sense of a break from the tedium of going every other day. But when I get done on Saturday I usually think, “That’s done and I don’t have to come back for two whole days! Yippee!”
Today I got here right on time and had to wait for over 30 minutes for a chair. They’re in one of their rushing around modes today. Finally I got my chair and Gladys cannulated me. The place was full and it seems like there are new people everywhere. One woman, who is over-dressed for dialysis in my opinion, and wears shades throughout, was sitting by me today. I hallucinate that she must be someone important or maybe she is a doctor. She demands staff to come to give her cups of ice, to adjust her chair, and even to adjust her machine. She just yells out, “Eloy. I need…… “. At one point I notice her reaching over and doing some adjustment to her machine herself. That’s interesting! Also, there’s a new guy who looks a little like a younger Kirk Douglas as he looked in the movie Lonely are the Brave (1962). He has a AV Graft in his upper chest. “The AV graft is … an under the skin connection of an artery and vein (in which) man-made tubing connects the artery and vein. The soft, plastic-like tube is about one-half inch in diameter and is made from a type of Teflon® or Gore-Tex® material.”*
Jennifer the dietician rolled by to give me the fish report I had asked her for last week. I had forgotten, so when she rolled up and said “I bet you didn’t think I’d remember.” I had no idea what she was talking about. So, the Fish Phosphorus Report is.... salmon, trout, and scallops are high phosphorus; snapper, catfish, and flounder are medium; and halibut, cod, tuna (canned in water) and oysters are low.
I read most of the new Networker on 21st century teens (article by Ron Taffel that pretty much tracks his last book and an interesting adult look at MySpace.com by Mary Sykes Wylie) and watched The Daily Show with John Stewart.
Notes: In at 74.7 Kg, and out at 71.6 Kg.
* Vascular access; your lifeline to hemodialysis. (2005) Retrieved July 25 online from the Davita website at http://www.davita.com/articles/dialysis/index.shtml?id=180
1 comment:
Hi
This is Yolanda Padilla from Social Work. Well, if you make your thoughts public I guess it's okay to respond? I notice that you said today that you felt as if you had had a vacation for not going to dialysis for 2 days. It made me remember about when my son went through a severe depression and we got those little breaks. I strongly believe that it is the little breaks we get (both the caretakers and those affected) that allow us to regenerate. My son was telling me that his friend hasn't felt well lately and what I wanted to know was whether it was constant or if he got "breaks." I knew he'd be okay if he got breaks, even if they were just a little while in the day. And so while this treatment needs to continue, I wish you many of those regenerating breaks.
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