9/10/06

52) Red Corpuscles Marching As To Bathe

September 9, 2006
Saturday

Saturday Morning:
My 10-year-old's first soccer game of the new season and she already won her first dollar! When Shayna scores I give her a dollar, and she scored the tieing goal this morning, making it 3 to 3. Her team, the Kick Kats went on to win 6 to 3 over the Lava Jets. “Go Kick Kats!”

El Milagro: Got in at noon today, which means I’ll get out at 4. Matt cannulated me today. Sandra w
ho says “Help” is in the chair right in front of me, laying sideways in the chair like a teenager. She is saying an audible “help” every few minutes, whenever she thinks about it. Throughout the afternoon various staff try to pacify her. Matt tries to be nice and Wilma tries the stern approach. Both ask Sandra at some point what she wants. “Jewelry” she responds. “Jewelry? You give me some, or I give you some?” Matt asks. She says, clear as a bell, “You give me some.” So he cuts a wrist-ring off a glove and slips it over her wrist, calling it jewelry. That mollifies her for about 5 minutes and then we hear her “help” again.

Connie the Nurse from Moritz’s office is moonlighting here today, and reports that the doc’s office has had to add another doc because they are so busy with patients in the hospital. She reports that she
still reads this blog every day at lunch (YEA Connie!) Debbie the Tech and I talk briefly about James Avery charm bracelets when I see her wearing one.

Today I am spending some time meditating so I can write about it. Yesterday I was talking to my friend Melissa and she asked if I ever meditated at dialysis, to which I replied that I occasionally did… but I haven’t normally described here my meditations in these posts. They range from breath work to visualizations. Breath work is
n’t that interesting to describe but my visualizations might be. I have earlier described various meditations in Posts # 2 and # 9 in April and Post # 38 (Friday) in August.

Sometimes I spend time picturing my little army of red corpuscles (erythrocytes)* marching out of my arterial vein into the dialysis machine to be cleaned. They’re like Dorothy and her crew getting cleaned up in the Emerald City, except they’re a whole army of little guys that look like red Werner’s caramels. These dirty, muddy, splotch
y little corpuscles and their officers (in their little white helmets) float-march up a stream of plasma, from my arterial vein through the translucent tube into the dialysis machine. There’s about 96% reds and 3% whites and 1% generals (the platelets). Somewhere in the confines of that aluminum box with dials and gauges they are being scrubbed, filtered, and inspected, Then out they come, swimming like the beauties in Esther Williams’ water ballet, back into my body all sparkly clean and with a gleam glinting from their brilliant white teeth. They’re again ready to chomp into the many toxins they gobble. That’s the way it seems to me.

Notes: In at 73.3 Kg. and out at 70.5 Kg.

*“Blood” Retrieved September 9 online from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood
New readers: See an orientation to this blog at Post # 47 in August.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

...an army with a general...an Esther Williams water ballet.....what great visuals! How about your bp? Have you had time to determine if it's tied to your nausea? Hope you are doing great today. I think about you often. Your C
p.s. YEA!! GO KICK CATS!! GO SHAYNA!!
p.s.s. I wonder if I blurt "help" every few minutes if I could get a little attention!?