Saturday
Today I have arranged to go to dialysis at 3... allowing time for plenty of home chores, starting with homemade waffles and hot maple syrup! YUM YUM. This morning I am at the yearly task of updating my blog's Index, soon to be put up here.
El Milagro: I get here a few minutes late and find that Rosie the Tech has given my chair away and I have to wait about 5 minutes... "Ya snooze, ya lose" I think. But I do have a chance to visit briefly with Suzanne the Administrator in the waiting room... she asks if I am still a Patient Ambassador and I nod "yes" and tell her about the conference call I was on last Wednesday. She is pleased I'm still in the group... and says she will re-add me to her list.
I am in the corner chair today. Rosie sticks me and asks me to wait for awhile while my machine finishes cleaning itself. She comes back to hook me up and we get into a conversation about Rosie's Logic for setting my machine. This starts after I ask Rosie a question about eating before dialysis and entry weight.
I weighed in @ 78 today and my dry weight is supposed to be 75. Here is the question: "Suppose a person eats a big meal right before dialysis? Like, this morning I ate three waffles (made with rice milk, of course) and about an hour before coming here I was so thirsty I drank a half bottle (32 oz.) of apple juice... so why don't techs ask when you ate when they ask your weight?" Seems like it matters when a person added the weight as much as the weight itself. Rosie replies that it doesn't really matter if the tech knows the patient. For example, in my case, even though I come in here @ 78, she does the math and THEN compares it to her knowledge of me (the patient), their history, etc., before setting the machine. I come in @ 78 and she automatically thinks I must've eaten recently cause I have gained some weight over the holidays AND my BP is low, AND historically I can't take off more than 3 without cramping.
She adds that the reason I was so thirsty is that Celeste the Nurse put me on a salt profile last time, hypothesizing that it would help me get down to my dry weight. As Charge Nurse, she's allowed to make those adjustments... "Huh?" I say... having not connected my unusually mega-thirst to anything but the waffles. So, even tho I am noting Rosie's Logic as we talk, I ask her to write down her formula for me when she has time and she blushingly agrees.
Then, to change the subject, she mentions that Amanda the Lost Tech (see Post # 310) texted her and said she misses everyone. I reply, "Tell her that now she can read the blog to keep up with whats going on around here." Rosie laughs and says she'll tell her I said that.
I move on to earphoning myself to my radio and catching the last 30 minutes of Folkways on KUT. I have brought my MI book but enjoy Folkways so much as I write that I don't crack the text. Along with blog maintenance earlier today, I have been considering starting a new blog (partly so that when I open my blog the dashboard has two of my blogs). A new blog to begin... something NOT connected to work or dialysis...what could it be? Wait and see...
Poetry? Not possibly.
Kim the Nurse comes by to do my nursing eval and reports that I sound good and I quip, "I'm a clean machine!" NPR's All Things Considered comes on... I am observing the clinic from the corner. There is this interesting woman in the chair right in front of me getting cannulated by Ann the Nurse. She has been on my shift for awhile now but I have never talked to her. She seems very dialysis-smart... watches Ann carefully and leans over the arm of her chair to check her BP on the machine (many patients just lay here like dead fish as the techs do their work) and conversing with Ann throughout the process. She brings some sort of Red Gatoraide so maybe she doesn't have to watch her diet like me. Is today the day I introduce myself to her? Do we have anything in common? She is wearing Tevas, black capris, and a medium colored cotton lavender shirt, 3/4 sleeves, with darker purple pin stripes. She carefully sets up all her supplies; her fuzzy tan banket over the back of her chair a nice yoga-style pillow in the corner. Her DaVita Sports bag is different than mine... its blue with gold stars trooping across the side. Although she is probably my age or so, her hair is jet black, hanging straight down to the middle of her back. I notice that she has slipped off her Tevas and put on black mid-high socks without my noticing... and it gives the appearance to me of the black footed Indian dancers in New Mexico, their feet and legs standing out sharply against the sand. She adjusts herself in the chair after Ann finishes, and turns on her TV; flipping thru the channels... what will she watch? Will I hallucinate something about her from her choice? She flips... I investigate her face...it is a somewhat weathered face... flat forehead... intelligent, blue eyes that dart around, seemingly noticing everything. When the new tech (Shawna) comes by, she asks her name. She settles her channel on Rodeo... bull riding and puts the speaker up by her ear... considerate of others cause I can't hear it over here. "Rodeo huh? Theres something to talk about..." As she watches I hallucinate that she is very comforable with dialysis and resigned to making the best of it. Of course, these are my observations... and to be confused with objective reality.
Partly I write off on this tangent thinking about Jonathan Kellerman's character descriptions and practicing my own writing style. Also, avoiding reading my book. Now, however, I tire of this write, write, writing and go on to watch some tube. Ann the Nurse stops by to inform me that she is upping my dry weight to 75.5... "Okay."
I find fascinating stuff on the History Channel today: Journey to 10,000 BC, Modern Marvels: The Horse, and most fascinating of all --> Russia's Killer Apemen, the story of Stalin's scientific attempts to put orangutan's sperm into human women in order to develop a race of killer apemen to rebuild the Russian Army. Cool!
Thus finisheth my Saturday Dialysis.
Happy Trails to You!
Notes: In at 78 and out at 75.4 kgs.
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