38) Three Day Report

August 3, 2006
Thursday

El Milagro: Diane cannulated me today; again good. Liz met with Jennifer the Dietician today about our eating habits and how we can better rid ourselves of the demon phosphorous. Then Liz came and reported to me while I was on the machine… the upshot being that Jennifer the Dietician thinks our food behaviors at home are good and that maybe they just need to give me another kind of binder or something. She told Liz that whenever a person gets their phosphorous under control, they don’t usually have further problems with it, so that is a motivation to keep up my attempts to get it out of my diet.

Notes: (Forgot to check weights).

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August 4, 2006
Friday:

Kerrville: Kim and I are taking Anita Jung* to do a workshop on youth who self-mutilate. Anita mixes data and ideas with participatory exercises in her workshops. So, at some point Anita leads this guided imagery exercise that I participate in… one of those “going to a place that’s relaxing” trance-like thingies. Well, I decide that it is more important for me to have a conversation with my cystic kidneys than to go to a grassy riverbank on the shore of the south fork Guadalupe River, so I transport myself right into my kidney to have a heart-to-heart with my cysts. I pop myself into the middle of my right kidney, imagining it like a large cavern having a glistening bloppy red roof with cysts poking out of the ceiling and walls, and laying about on the floor where I’m sitting (in an easy chair upholstered blue grey with 2 inch silver embroidered fleur-de-lis. I picture the cysts like those fuzzy purplish burrs we see around Central Texas…. like eryngo without the spiny leaves. I’m sitting there comfortably in the over-stuffed easy chair saying:

“Hello cysties. In the last few years I’ve been very angry and frustrated about your existence in my kidneys. You’re making me fat around the middle; although I’ve promised myself I’ll never buy a pair of Levi 501’s larger than a 34” waist. So, you’ll just have to get squeezed when you multiply. I wonder how it is you decided to grow here and what the Hell you have against me! Is it all about my having a ‘sense of shame, failure, disappointment, and being over-critical’ as Louise Hay** would suggest? Now I’m sitting here in my easy chair, ready to have a heart-to-heart with you. I really want to know what the deal is. I am willing to accept your presence and willing to assume there is a positive intention in your behavior, if you will only describe to me what it could possibly be. I’m on a list to have your house replaced, but I want you to know it’s nothing personal. It’s just that I want to go on living and do it without the constraint of being on dialysis forever. I want to look forward to another sailing trip to the Caribbean with my family and I really can’t see doing that without a new kidney. So, I’d like you to think it over and see if there is a way for you to be part of the solution instead of being the problem. If there is something I can do to ‘heal’ you, please give me some sort of comprehensible sign and I’ll get right on to doing whatever I have to do. Thanks for listening to my diatribes and I hope you don’t take them too personally.”

So, that is basically the conversation I had with the cysts. Anita calls us out of our 'relaxing' trance places and I open my eyes to the bright room. I don’t recall any answers coming forth from the cysts; but logically, why would they answer? They’ve been cursed and diss’d by me for years now so it is really no wonder they are incommunicado. In my mind, I am just starting to build some sort of relationship with them so it may be several sessions before they open up. That’s the way it seems to me.

Notes: *See Anita Jung’s Home of Therapeutic Change (nd) retrieved online June 15, 2006 at http://www.angelfire.com/psy/anita_jung/
**Hay, Louise L. (1987) You can heal your life. London: Hay House UK, Ltd. (LH & Kidneys online at: https://howhealthworks.com/nacho_newsletters/nacho_4.htm )

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August 5, 2006
Saturday

El Milagro: Herman cannulated me today and I recalled his slickness at sticking people, since he hasn’t stuck me in weeks. He indicated keeping track of my blog and we laughed about certain entries. Today again, the woman who says “help” was in the room, quietly saying her 'helps' throughout most of my time on the machine. The Sunglassed Important Lady (see Post #34) is here and some younger preppy relatives visit her, staying a few minutes to 'do their time'. And, the new Bookish Talky-Phone Woman (see Post #35) is adjusting to being here I hallucinate: she is now watching TV more than reading. I read my new book, Fluke* for most of the session; trying to finish it before I give it to my son John to take to Hawaii on August 15th.

I also spend some time visualizing how I want to plant the cactus we bought this morning... they'll go on the south side of the garage that I’ve cleared for our cactus garden.

Notes: In at 74.3 Kg. and out at 71.7 Kg.
*Moore, Christopher (2004) Fluke: Or, I know why the winged whale sings. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc. (See the author’s website online: http://www.chrismoore.com/bookpage.asp?PB_ISBN=006056668X )