Surgeon says FAT!

The question was:

WHAT IS BLOCKING THE CATHETER SO THAT THE FLOW IS RESTRICTED?

I am having another simple procedure on Thursday at Centennial Hospital (outpatient)…They are doing an exploratory lap to see what is wrong with the catheter. After over 12 weeks of trying and trying to get the dialysis “flow” to go better!(which includes standing on my head, hand over fist of daily laxatives, impulsive runs to the potty at all hours, and 8 hours/day of dialysis.) I am really excited that he has done this before. He predicts that some fat has overlapped the openings of the catheter and are sticking to it. When I asked him if I was having mini liposuction, he didn’’t really laugh but I almost got a smile out of him. My weight has dropped some due to the aforementioned laxatives, despite gorging of food! So he said No, not really a liposuction, but close.

So I will miss the book club! So sad!

But I will back in full force Friday and Saturday to show property and order contractors & hope for a transplant!!!!!! With your help, I am so happy these days! Please call John if you get a chance and give him a good joke or kudos. He has been a saint and a tireless helper & best friend.

Call me/praise Him!

Update...nighttime dialysis eludes me

HI Laura! Well, welcome to Nashville. I'm glad we found you a house.

I'm afraid I'm not a very good friend lately. Dialysis is like having a very needy baby. I am up all hours, sometimes rocking my body until the drain works better. i have been at the clinic so many days, then still doing dialysis for 4-8 hrs per day. I feel pretty darned good, my biggest problem is sitting still and canceling plans. Luckily, i have an extraordinary group of friends & family that put up with me and work around my horrible schedule.


and I still need to work and still love it, even though I am working mostly with hurt sellers. I just try to help.


I would love a visit anytime, esp in the evening because you can usually count on my having to do exchanges then. However, John and I go out to eat tons, mostly in our sweats after the gym....so there aren't too many places to go like that! ha We would love for you to join us for a big steaming bowl of Mexican pollo soupa at our little place. My goal is to see the last of the good movies in the next few weeks, so i will try and call you before we head out. The problem is, we never plan ahead, which is a pain for friends.

I committed to walk in the half marathon with Kim, who understands my fear and more importantly, my schedule.

This past week was incredibly long and Kat and Kim said the same thing. It must've been the inauguration and the absorption of so much energy and excitement. I was also very entertained by the entire event. However, it was a very disappointing week as the dialysis night time cycler failed to work for me. I cannot even go there now, because I tried it again last night and it alarmed every 5-15 minutes. I abandoned it around 10 and was up til late finishing a manual exchange. Latte further encourages me, even as he is bleary eyed and achy from lack of sleep.

I may be having procedure on Wed to explore my gut area - they need to see what is wrong and why this is so slow. Simple lap but it still will "slow" me down. it has been over 13 weeks of this!
i see the surgeon tomorrow & he will schedule. I also have a rescheduled nephrology appointment because for the 2nd time, the doc canceled our meeting (and they didn't call me! I'm afraid i have built a case against him and his nurse!) I also have some great new listings and some dear families I am helping. Most importantly, my hair needs color and my nails (as usual) look ragged. Since that is not important it gets pushed on. Oh, yes, my tags have expired now for 2 months. I've had offers of help; just trying to figure it all out. Sooo. all that is to say, this week seems kinda full!

Update on Monday...Showing Houses & Clinic Visits

To many dearest friends:

I got a nice email from you about 2 weeks ago. I am doing well. I pretend like I am not doing dialysis 4 to 8 hours a day (Unbelievable to me!) but I am. I switch to nighttime soon so that my days will be free again. I have to go to the clinic right now once or twice a week for a blood draw, but soon that will be less as well. So I’ve gotten behind. I know you understand. I have been so incredibly blessed in ways I’ve never expected, and in ways that I’m sure I don’t understand.

This slow time has been good for me to really look at my life and my work. I’ve remembered that I love my life and the work. Nice to step back and take a break, so this economy has really been good for me in many ways. I still work on the fear of poverty and lots of other things like patience. I try to work on not running John off, because as the challenges get greater, He has more and more to be frustrated about. His remarkable attitude helps me. My parents are amazing and it is sometimes hard to talk to them as much as they’d like because, well, you know, they just love me so much.

I am constantly working on the balance between being absolutely so social, which is my natural state, and taking it easy and slow to do things like sort my laxatives, stool softeners and monitor my insulin pump. FUN CHOICES! Fortunately I have one or two friends that hear from me 10 times a day to get updates on the extremes: how hard I laughed at somebody’s joke last night and how long I stayed in the bathroom from 5am. (read: diaherreah or constipation! Fun) Another blessing: I am not in pain, well, almost never. I mostly feel swell.

....The next two weeks I will be dealing with the nighttime exchange and trying to pass the test to do that. (I failed it last week!) I have new listings that I am excited about and some really great clients. I actually think that it will be fun!

Night time dialysis soon...countdown

This Thursday and Friday I am to complete all day classes on night-time dialysis. This will allow my days to be free from exchanges.

I cannot believe that this is finally happening. For 10 weeks I have been doing 4 exchanges a day, sometimes to the tune of 8 hours per day. But lately, the time has come down and my attitude is better. Now I don't get angry when the fluid doesn't flow quickly, I just get more laxatives. And I cancel appointments. (Oh how I missed so many parties this past holiday). I still get very disappointed but I am trying to match Latte's adaptable nature and good will.

I've tried not to allow myself any excitement about this new night-time machine, because I know we are going to be up all night messing with the alarms, etc (apparently the machine alarms when there is a slow flow) But I know it is for a short time! Soon we will be sleeping through it all, just like i sleep through the insulin pump alarms now! ha Sleep is totally overrated. You can get by with less. A recent NYTimes article says that your mental attitude toward little sleep affects how you feel the next day. I have adopted new attitudes toward not sleeping. (ask me in a month how i feel)

I've really enjoyed the company of my friends the last few days. I've many impressions and a little delight at hearing stories. Dinner last night and lunch today was the greatest therapy in the world. It takes some extra planning to get it in right now, but it just seems like so much more of a reward than real therapy. (that probably sounds like sacrilege!)

In the same gatherings we've talked about the movie "Doubt" and is gossip a mortal sin or venial sin? Then we proceed to tell the story about the fantastic hilarious Nashville woman that, returning home from Las Vegas with her husband, she thinks she's unexpectedly pregnant. They get an ultra-sound and I'm sure she was completely stressed out. When the tech says, "There is a baby in there!" The mother said, "Are you sure it's not a bottle of vodka?" I do love that woman!

Then I heard about the covert meetings my artist friend is having with a Belle Meade woman. He's building a table for her. She meets to give him money in the Sperry's parking lot. She doesn't want her husband to know about the table and the money she's spending. "Well I told her that it was going behind her sofa in the den, he's bound to SEE it."

very few things delight me as much as a darn good story. The real thing is so much more fun than fiction.

I was thinking about how much I wanted to get drunk last night. This is a very rare feeling for me and most of my friends know that I don't drink. I realized sometime in my 20's that I had never had a whole beer. While I admit and am proud to say that I was dancing more and crazier than any other person at the frat house, I remained sober. There were aprox 3 times that I got very drunk and those were the only times that I drank while in college. I never even sipped the rest of the time. It was either a shot or three or nothing. And in my 30s I realized that I didn't like the wine slurping that everyone else was doing. I bought my first condo on the money saved at the bars. I used to walk into The Trace and Billy would wave at me and pass me an ice water. I became proud of keeping my wits and my balance, esp on the tables.

I was wondering why I felt like getting drunk and I'm sure it is just the physical escape when I'm tired. I resolve to keep my record though because it just doesn't seem worth the drag it causes on my diabetes.

Well, the UPS just delivered my new copy of "Light Bread" - ordered from Amazon, written by my amazing friend Cordell. I suggest you buy it, of course. I carried my dialysis bags to the door to sign for it. One was dragging on the floor, half full of yellow fluid. Niiiiice. He was kinda cute.

trying to share the calendar: experiment

John is kind enough to help me with my google calendar. The "solvenator" as he likes to call himself, suggested that I make my own calendar for the dialysis nurses. I have voiced many complaints, here and otherwise, about their disorganization. (they lose my fax number each week, they lose my pharmacy number, they don't call in the scripts like they say they will, they take don't keep individual calendars, they answer cell calls at all hours, they don't have a receptionist, the list goes on and on...)

Today, unbelievably, Candy called and asked me on what day had she given me iron? This has been over a month ago and she didn't seem to have it in her file. She also mentioned last week that she "forgot" to take my aluminum levels, after drawing 4 vials of blood. (I got a quick lesson on high levels of aluminum, which has never been mentioned before. No more aluminum canned drinks or apparently, deodorant, though I'm just not sure because ....they've never checked my aluminum! )

So the Solvenator's idea that I start keeping my "health calendar" and that I send it to Candy the nurse is probably a good one. I can put my daily input /output of fluids, weight, BP and temperature (what I keep up with daily). The problem is: Isn't she getting paid to keep up with my blood draws and my schedule? Why is the further burden on me? After the big mess up last week (I was supposed to bring my PET test in. I called her and she told me no. Not to bring anything in.)I guess it is better that i keep up with our schedule. I sure am hard on her about her inability to keep a calendar. I haven't voiced this to her. I'm just harping here. Thanks for indulging me.

Who Deserves This?

I heard that someone in someone else's bookclub said that I was on a church's prayer list. I got a message that I am being prayed for in Knoxville. I have gotten over 300 prayer cards from First Baptist in Hendersonville.

I cannot write about this now.

Those closest to me continue to bring me dinner and order special rice for me and listen to me detail my day to the most boring extreme. John is sick for the first time in years and he hasn't complained once; he still insisted on cleaning up my bags last night though he had a fever.

I continue to make such remarkable progress. I have come to a new level of calm: not panicking when the exchanges do not go well. I am not so disappointed when I feel terrible. I am more often upset by grace and its meaning than having to arrange my schedule around my healthcare. Trying to understand what someone deserves and doesn't deserve is on my mind this morning as I work freely and happily.

I am energized by my work. I can help others. I really do love it and all of its challenges. It continues to teach me more about myself and beat me up once in awhile. Since I have so much to learn about how I react with others, I want to keep doing it for along time.

Let me know if you are there!

Thanks for letting me know if you are reading this! I need encouragement!