48) Tuesday Thursday Report

August 31, 2006
Thursday

El Milagro: Diane cannulated me. I am reading Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro and it is quite slow on the take, but Kim’s David recommended it so I am trudging into it. I am almost looking for distractions from my reading and see Jennifer the Dietician walking by on her way to consult with someone else and I call her over. She says, “I hope your new blood work looks better. Keep our fingers crossed” and I reply that I plan to break all my rules this weekend and eat chile rellenos at my annual chile roast, explaining that we roast about 40 lbs. of green chiles and freeze them for the year. Like canning, but with chiles. Then, we take the nicest ones and cook up about 60 chile rellenos and have a relleno feast. So, then we talk about chile rellenos because she knows nothing about them, being from Louisiana. She imagines that chile rellenos is some sort of dip that we put chips into. I clarify for her exactly what a chile roast is, and what a relleno is.

So, then she says, well you better take your binders and I say I’m taking them all the time; 5 renagel and 3 phoslo… and then she says “8 at a time?” Turns out she meant I should be taking 5 total, not 5 + 3… so I better have a better phosphorus count since I’m taking 3 more binders than she meant for me to take. We’ll see my new blood results next Tuesday. They are off schedule because of the hurricane in Florida. What? “Yes”, she says, “They send our blood to Florida to a lab…” and then she adds almost apologetically, “I know nothing about the lab business.”

Later I watch the news, take a nap, and read another few pages of Ishiguro. So it goes.

Notes: In at 74.1 Kg. and out at 71.4 Kg.

<◊><◊><◊><◊><◊><◊><◊><◊><◊><◊><◊><◊><◊><◊>
August 29, 2006
Tuesday

El Milagro: Carol cannulated me. My BP was high all through the session…. Moritz stopped by and asked about my BP, to which I responded that today is unusual. I took a nap. At the end of my session I noticed Amanda was there but we didn’t talk. I wonder if she has read these posts and how they mesh with her experiences here. Aside from staff, she is the only patient whom I’ve shared this blog with and it will be interesting to discuss it with her at some point. Maybe she’ll come out of lurkdom and make a comment.

Notes: In at 72.7 Kg. and out at 70.9 Kg.