Kidney Gripes, June 2023 Edition

I have now been getting thrice-weekly dialysis treatments for nearly five months.

At first, the dialysis team indicated there was a chance that my kidneys may regain function. They have since dialed back their optimism. I have been informed that should the day come when I want or need to get a kidney transplant, they will help me in the steps to make it happen. They’ve told me that it’s good to keep getting dialysis because the time I spend getting dialysis treatments is applied against the transplant “waiting list” or whatever they call it.

The truth is, I can handle dialysis. I can handle recording my morning show twice a week. I can handle walking around with a headache for 3 or 4 hours after every treatment. I can handle getting up at 5:45am on a Saturday after a full week of pre-dawn wakeup calls. All that, I can handle.

What I’m not handling so well are the…for lack of a better term…extracurricular activities.

There are many things suggested to me, required of me, recommended to me, that strike fear in my heart. I’ve written previously about how terrified I was when they started selling me on getting a hepatitis B vaccine. Vaccines, more recently in my life, have knocked me on my ass. But everyone up to and includng a doctor of nephrology STRONGLY RECOMMENDED that I get this particular jab. Which I have now done twice. And no bad stuff happened. Score a point for nephrology.

Next, the topic of “at-home dialysis” was brought up. This is done by sticking a thingamabob in my stomach and connecting the other end to a machine at home. The dialysis team was really trying to sell me on this, and I genuinely can see the benefit: By doing home dialysis overnight I could go back to doing my morning show live every day, the way I like it. But this isn’t going to work for me, owning to some big roadblocks: One, at-home dialysis requires frequent delivery of large boxes of filtered water, and there is just no room in my apartment for that; two, it requires a space that is completely immaculate…not a prayer; and three–and this is the real one–I don’t trust myself to administer any kind of medical care beyond a Flintstones vitamin. I’m easily distracted, I’m forgetful, I’m dumber than a post. “Disc jockey” is the job I have chosen for myself because it is literally the only thing I trust myself to do right.

So at-home dialysis is a closed subject. But now we open the subject of….The Fistula! What’s a fistula, you ask? Wikipedia sez:

It is typically a surgically created connection between an artery and a vein in the arm…

So, right now, to get dialysis treatments, I have a chest catheter (not to be confused with the more commonly known type…”In the butt, Bob”). The catheter is an expressway to my heart (Soul Survivors we salute you). Which means I can’t get it wet. Which makes outdoor events, like last weekend’s classic car show and this weekend’s Bands On The Bricks, a white-knuckle edge-of-my-seat thrill ride. Now, if I get the fistula…

-Wait. Hold on. Can we just agree that fistula is the most disgusting name anybody could have found for this? Here, I’ll try to find some grosser ones. Cold Hard Gash? Vein Train? The Spurt Locker?

Nope. Can’t beat Fistula.

Anyway, if i get the fistula I would get the catheter removed. Which means no more cold sweats when it sprinkles. But of course the fistula has delightful little side effects like I might leave dialysis and my arm might just start bleeding out of the clear blue sky. Don’t that beat all!

Sigh.

Oh, and on my last visit to dialysis I got a tuberculosis test. There’s a little red dot where they gave me the test. I have no idea what size dot means good or what means bad. So tomorrow, I might find out I have TUBERCU-FREAKING-LOSIS! I just…..ehhhh………..as I have said over and over again at moments of pitiable weakness: I wish I were a stronger person. I am blessed to have wonderful people in the dialysis dept. at Box Butte General Hospital who take good care of me and put up with my cowardice.