Dithers, Drama, & Duldrums

Ok, I know you didn't ask, but I'm going to say it. I am starting to NOT have fun with this dialysis thing. Do you know there is even a website called "I Hate Dialysis" here???? It's actually quite good - not a pity party but an empathy party. Nobody knows like someone else on dialysis. There is so much stress. So much anger. So much sadness. So much really icky stuff. You try to minimize it and not make it the center of your life - but there it is. You have to watch WHAT you eat. You have to watch HOW MUCH you eat. Your list of what you CANNOT eat is three pages long, while you can put on a little post-it note what you CAN eat (white rice, unsalted green beans, and Mandarin oranges, or any combination thereof). You have to watch your blood pressure and hope that while you are on dialysis, it doesn't crash - which happens so much that when the alarms go off, you have to look at your own machine to find out if it is you or not. Of course, if you really crash, you're unconscious, so you don't even give a rip.

Now, because I want a particular method of dialysis called the Buttonhole, (where two needles are inserted in the same two holes over and over until they create a channel, or track, much like the holes for earrings), I need the same technician over and over to create that track. And there is no guarantee that I will always get the same technician. So, I am (dramatic drum roll) DOING THE NEEDLES MYSELF.

I am in training, but it is hands' on. A nurse guides me. I have had three sessions this week, and only the first one was successful. I missed the track of the second needle on Wednesday and had to start over, and today, I made it, but nicked the vein and had to withdraw the second needle and use my temporary site (a catheter in my chest) for the second tube.

First - it hurts.
Second - it is overwhelmingly stressful.
Third - you have to hold off the two sites at the end for ten minutes to be sure they won't bleed. Wednesday, I was done, got up, and blood started to gush. I had to re-hold for another ten minutes.
Fourth. Time D.R.A.G.S. when the needle isn't in right and is touching a nerve and you sit there for three and a half hours in pain. I'm talking a TEN, on a scale of one to ten. I am THIS close to having them take me off early - which wouldn't help me in the long run. (Now I understand why the corporate headquarters' nurse asks me if I have skipped any treatments. Before this, I thought why would I do that????)

So - this is my sad tale. I'm just no fun.
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