100) The Hundredth Post

February 10, 2007
Saturday

Morning: Wow! The hundredth post. I guess I would hope that the hundredth post would be like the hundredth monkey*; that in this 100th post my desire for a live human kidney donor would morphogenically jump from the 100 readers of this blog to the population as a whole. And, as in the story of the hundredth monkey, the knowledge about Jack’s need for a kidney, and better yet; the world’s need for people to become organ donors would become a common understanding among all mankind.

Unfortunately, the phenomenon of the hundredth monkey has been shown by Elaine Meyers not to be ‘evidence-based’ or empirically validated in the accounts of the monkey study. So, we have another case of a belief (or narrative) clash with empirical data. Some would remind us that empirical data can only support a mechanistic view of reality and therefore only validate part of the whole of reality. I would hope there are many folds of reality out there that present opportunities to validate experience in new ways, such as are found in some of the qualitative approaches to analysis. I would bet there are ways of analysis that we haven’t discovered yet that will lead to new ways to validate experiences and phenomena that don’t lend themselves to the empirical forms of study.

As Joseph Chilton Pierce expressed in The Crack in the Cosmic Egg many years ago, “The world view we inherit has been built up by putting things into objective pigeonholes…, categories that can be shared. …However, to shatter our working models of the universe (with alternative experiences of “reality”) does not lead to truth, any kind of new data, or, above all, a ‘true picture’ of the universe. The universe, like all nature, is a conceptual framework that changes from culture to culture and age to age.” ** Pearce was considering the crack between our sum total assumptions about the world (the egg) and it’s rules, and the “mode of thinking through which imagination can escape the mundane shell and create a new cosmic egg” (p.xiv).

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Milagro: I called in to find out about coming in early and couldn’t get an answer because I called in the middle of them putting the second shift on. They called back and told Liz I could come in at 1:30 so I did. I walk in and pass Phyllis the Nurse and Herman the Nurse and Phyllis says, “What’s up?” to which I reply “Nothing” and then she replies with something like, “Not much to write about? That’s going to be boring”, or something similar. I try to goad her into reading the blog (she says she never reads these things) and Herman is sure she never will, and that’s okay. But a few minutes later she is mentioning to a patient that the patient should act right because she might get written up on the internet… and that makes me feel kinda weird. I hallucinate that soon everyone will be kidding me about reporting on El Milagro and I worry I’ll become self-conscious. Nah.

So I move on around the bend and settle into my chair and it was some time before Gladys got to poking me. As usual she does an efficient and quick stick and has me all taped up in record time. I click through the channels looking for basketball games and find UT vs. Iowa State in the second half and UT is ahead by about 15 points. Ah yes, that is a good sign. They finish up winning and are now in third place in the Big 12, behind A & M and Kansas. I next find Oklahoma at Baylor and am surprised to see Baylor almost beat OU.

Now I’m ready for a doze… one of the good things about dialysis is that the whole scene promotes napping. Where else can one nap as a part of a compulsory activity? Dialysis makes it easy to take Robert Fulghum’s advice to “Take a nap every afternoon.”*** We all are too busy to take a nap and yet I find that napping is a good way to spend some time. I don’t recommend that you wreck your kidneys to get into dialysis so you can take a nap. But, find some time for a nap in your daily regimen, and I guarantee you’ll thank me (or Fulgham).

As I awoke from my nap and my consciousness rose up from a delta state through theta and alpha and pops into beta***, I found myself thinking about what I want to say I have learned through 100 posts on this blog.

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Learnings From 100 Posts: Since starting this blog last April, I have learned (1) that I can integrate dialysis into my life and although I complain and bitch about it, I am able to integrate it into my life in a way that only minimally impacts my work. I have learned (2) that I am able to successfully schedule work and dialysis and family without significantly missing anything (although Shayna’s sports functions are usually the first to go). I have also learned (3) more about how important Liz is to my ability to handle everything, since she takes care of more of the details of my life than I’d even care to mention. Without Liz helping in my personal life and Big Kim helping in my business life, I wouldn’t be nearly so able to do this whole thing.

I have learned (4) that even though I am a sick puppy, I am also alive and kicking and all aspects of my life aren’t influenced by having ESRD (End Stage Renal Dissease)… this ESRD thing sounds much more mean and nasty than I make it on a daily basis. On matter what my physical body is doing, the one thing I can always influence is my own attitude of positivity and possibility.

I have learned (5) that there are a bunch of people working in dialysis centers who are devoted to making their patients as comfortable as possible without patronizing or pitying them while they are getting their life-prolonging blood cleaning. And I have learned (6) there are tons of people in this state of being that is dependent upon these blood cleaning machines and helplessly awaiting healthy citizens to become aware of the possibility of helping humanity by donating their organs.

And, finally, I’ve learned (7) it is good to take a nap whenever you have some spare time.

Notes: In at 75.0 and out at 72.6 Kgs.
New Readers: For A Welcome Post, click August 2006 on the Sidebar.
* Hundredth Monkey retrieved February 2007 from Wikepedia online, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_Monkey
** Pearce, J.C. (1971) The crack in the cosmic egg. New York: Pocket Books, p. 34.
*** Fulgham, R. (n.d.) If you have ever wondered… all I really needed to know I learned I learned in kindegarten. Retrieved February 2007 online at http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/poetry/robert-fulghum.html
**** What is the function of the various brainwaves? (2005) Retrieved online February, 2007 from Intelegen Inc.’s website at http://brain.web-us.com/brainwavesfunction.htm