OK
Sometimes I find it hard to find a topic to blog on, so as once i wrote every day, now i try to discipline myself to at least 4 times a week. Today my topic will seem like fiction, but although i am a fiction writer/poet, this is my true day for Monday.
When I left at 7 am to go to the hospital. I was really in a good mood. It seemed of the 4 of us , I had the best weekend. I will tell you about the Tunisian Market another time. But we were a tad late getting into dialyze, which is not uncommon on a Monday as the nurses caught up on their weekend and all the things they claim they have to do before we go in. So , anyway, Joyce comes down to let us in the ward. As usual, the two nurses favorites are already on machine, and the rest do the best we can. I like to do extra time on a Monday, but i have two other patients i ride with, so I am embarrassed to hold them back from going home as dialyzing is exhausting and none of us is under 50. SO I am being set up, and for once, a nice chat with the nurse, no clotting, and my needles are not painful at all. It was great, I planned to nap and catch up on some sleep(another blog for another day).
The session flies by. One of the patients wives runs errand at the hospital store for us if we need anything, and i gave her a pound to find me a piece of fruit. For that pound she came back with 2 apples, 2 plums, a pear and a lovely orange. I felt like a queen when i could share my bounty with my fellows. Yes I am that shallow.
Time flies and now it is time to go home. My nurse returns my blood to me and prepares to take out the needles. Then she gasps. Audibly. It seems we both figured i would do extra time and she had set the machine up for that. When i told her I didn't have time today to do extra time she reset the machine. Here is the thing, in the extra time, say i do a half hour for example, they just remove fluid but don't dialyze. Then you do your four hours straight dialyzing. Somehow when we reset the machine,no one told it to clean my blood, so now after sitting 4 hours solid, I HAVE to do extra time cause i was not dialyzed. I was on the machine until 3 when my bloods tests came back and showed my potassium and other levels were acceptable to send me home. If you know I am sure you can imagine the screaming fit my nurses expected. I was even sure I would break new decibel levels in the ward. I was just so angry, and anger to me comes out in sound. Then the weirdest thing of all happened. I looked at the nurse responsible, and saw how truly upset she was. In fact, I thought she might cry. I thought back to all the times i made her life rough just because I could, and because if I were hurting, she was gonna pay too, and then i remembered she was my first nurse when I cried he whole two hour first session.Never stopped crying once, not even to fall asleep. When you have dialyzed a while, you learn the machine has many alarms to keep you safe. That day every time it went off, I screamed. Total fear and panic. Sometimes the alarms are machine related and nothing to do with the patient, like the one that goes off to tell a nurse time to let patient go home their session is complete.
Well if you believed me so far we will go a bit further. I sat there and did not raise my voice. I negotiated a fair time we could both agree to, and I did my extra time. Then I went home. End of story.
All's well that ends well they say.
Blessings.
Sometimes I find it hard to find a topic to blog on, so as once i wrote every day, now i try to discipline myself to at least 4 times a week. Today my topic will seem like fiction, but although i am a fiction writer/poet, this is my true day for Monday.
When I left at 7 am to go to the hospital. I was really in a good mood. It seemed of the 4 of us , I had the best weekend. I will tell you about the Tunisian Market another time. But we were a tad late getting into dialyze, which is not uncommon on a Monday as the nurses caught up on their weekend and all the things they claim they have to do before we go in. So , anyway, Joyce comes down to let us in the ward. As usual, the two nurses favorites are already on machine, and the rest do the best we can. I like to do extra time on a Monday, but i have two other patients i ride with, so I am embarrassed to hold them back from going home as dialyzing is exhausting and none of us is under 50. SO I am being set up, and for once, a nice chat with the nurse, no clotting, and my needles are not painful at all. It was great, I planned to nap and catch up on some sleep(another blog for another day).
The session flies by. One of the patients wives runs errand at the hospital store for us if we need anything, and i gave her a pound to find me a piece of fruit. For that pound she came back with 2 apples, 2 plums, a pear and a lovely orange. I felt like a queen when i could share my bounty with my fellows. Yes I am that shallow.
Time flies and now it is time to go home. My nurse returns my blood to me and prepares to take out the needles. Then she gasps. Audibly. It seems we both figured i would do extra time and she had set the machine up for that. When i told her I didn't have time today to do extra time she reset the machine. Here is the thing, in the extra time, say i do a half hour for example, they just remove fluid but don't dialyze. Then you do your four hours straight dialyzing. Somehow when we reset the machine,no one told it to clean my blood, so now after sitting 4 hours solid, I HAVE to do extra time cause i was not dialyzed. I was on the machine until 3 when my bloods tests came back and showed my potassium and other levels were acceptable to send me home. If you know I am sure you can imagine the screaming fit my nurses expected. I was even sure I would break new decibel levels in the ward. I was just so angry, and anger to me comes out in sound. Then the weirdest thing of all happened. I looked at the nurse responsible, and saw how truly upset she was. In fact, I thought she might cry. I thought back to all the times i made her life rough just because I could, and because if I were hurting, she was gonna pay too, and then i remembered she was my first nurse when I cried he whole two hour first session.Never stopped crying once, not even to fall asleep. When you have dialyzed a while, you learn the machine has many alarms to keep you safe. That day every time it went off, I screamed. Total fear and panic. Sometimes the alarms are machine related and nothing to do with the patient, like the one that goes off to tell a nurse time to let patient go home their session is complete.
Well if you believed me so far we will go a bit further. I sat there and did not raise my voice. I negotiated a fair time we could both agree to, and I did my extra time. Then I went home. End of story.
All's well that ends well they say.
Blessings.
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