And now for something completely different...

Ok...well, maybe not. More of the usual bitching, I'm afraid. I'm not getting enough sleep at dialysis...blah blah blah. The dialysis chair is killing my neck, blah blah blah. I keep falling asleep on my drive home, blah blah blah. Well, my last post about dialysis chairs garnered a response from my dialysis center. And that response was...? Well, I won't go into that right now, but let's just say that the last word was that "they" have ordered a couple of chairs to be tested out and that those chairs should be here soon(ish). My neck will be grateful when the chairs arrive...so will other assorted parts of me. I'm not going to complain any more (in this particular blog, hehehe) about the chair situation. There are many other things to complain about!


To my way of thinking, dialysis is someone's idea of a fun-creepy method of torturing people. Sure, the "someones" want you to think dialysis exists to prolong your life...but I dunno... sometimes it feels like a cruel, slow death-- like watching a Flavor of Love marathon. Here's what I mean...

...spending hours on end in an uncomfortable chair that causes neck pain, back pain, leg pain, ass pain. The treatments dry you up, dry you out, cramp your style and your legs, make you tired and sleepy. Is this not torture of some kind?

Ok, the fistula. The fistula they want us all to have-- this ginormous snaking thing that has utterly put me off of short sleeves forever. Mine pulsates like crazy (high flows, high blood pressure) and it sometimes works too well. Even crazier is that some stranger tries to stick these gigantic needles into this gyrating mess on my arm. This method of keeping me "alive" (and yes, I have to use quotes because if you saw what I look like today on the 1 hour of sleep I got at the dialysis clinic last night, you wouldn't be assured that I'm alive) is ...in-elegant. I'm not sure where else on my body I'd prefer to be connected to the dialysis machine-- hmmm... my back, maybe? So I wouldn't have to see it. Eeesh! How about my false navel-- the one they created for me during my hernia surgery. Oh yeah, I already tried an adominal catheter and that wasn't particularly sexy. Gee, I do miss my chest catheter(s). There wasn't any pain with it...I could stand up and do aerobics during dialysis with it. A fistula is a pain the arm (and the ass!). And ugh, yeah, ok, you could start buttonholes and perhaps it would be less painful-- but getting the damned buttonholes going on my fistula is nearly impossible. I don't know if it's flows... fast healing...anuerysms or what, but getting the buttonhole needles in is painful and usually doesn't work-- even after 2 months of trying. *le sigh*

Using a fistulas is painful enough (with all those sticks every session-- with or without lidocaine)... but then I have to protect my fistula while trying to sleep during nocturnal dialysis. I tell ya, the anuresis alarms we're currently using prolly aren't going to detect blood leaks on me because the damned things ends up everywhere but near my fistula. hehehe. Oh well. Since I'm usually awake during dialysis I can usually see when I've sprung a leak. An anuersis detector with dual probes would be much more useful than what we have now. Maybe I should patent that, hmmm.

Ok...enough about fistulas. I'm moving on to the television setups in dialysis centers. Whose bright idea was it to have televisions on the ceiling? Even if you're in bordello position (tm) in your dialysis chair, can you really watch television comfortably with the screen kissing the ceiling? And what's with the remotes? Is the goal to deafen all the patients? My remotes only work on "OFF" "DEAFENING" and "MOST DEAFENING." Argh! Sometimes it much better to watch the television with closed captions, en espanol!

Let's see, what else can I complain about? Ah, the darkness of the clinic for nocturnal dialysis... hmmm..well, not a problem for me-- since I don't sleep more than an hour or so at the clinic. But I imagine it is difficult for other patients, who need darkness to sleep. I did see one patient with a mask over his eyes, but I don't know if I would get much sleep like that. They do dim the lights in the unit, but I know that's not dim enough for everyone. Then there the noise problem, though the staff keep the guffawing down for the most part, at our unit.

Ah...I have a dozen other complaints. Hey, dialysis totally sucks ass. Nocturnal dialysis just sucks a little less (if you can get comfortable enough). Still seems like torture to me. But then I haven't tried waterboarding. Sh! Don't let the clinical staff hear that word, it may become a new treatment. hehehe.

That's enough for now...because I'm at work and the Net Nanny the City runs will probably go off in a bit and forbid to me to type another stroke. Next time I'll try to post about the flat-lying dialysis chairs that I discovered on the internet-- and who knows? maybe by then the new chairs will have arrived at the center and I can offer my thoughts. *smile*

Happy Zzzzssss.

Michelle/Treasure