Not So Daily Updates - I Guess We're Getting Everything Out of the Way Now

I know, I know, I haven’t posted in quite some time, looks like almost two months; give me a break, I’ve got some pretty good reasons, not excuses. Let’s see, in the end of February there were some quite exciting things going on as well as some big downers as well; since I have terrible memory, and kidney failure magnifies the uselessness of my brain, I cheated a bit and went to Facebook to check out my updates. I’ll try to keep it in the same format I have been writing in all along, rather then creating bullet points of my posts; with all this gun controversy, is it cool that I said bullet points?

Since my last post was on the 23^rd, I decided that I should fill you in from there on out; don’t get jumpy now, I am still trying to wrench the memories from within my decrepit brain on my diagnosis and the gaps after discharge, I really wish I kept a journal. February 24^th was a Sunday, and if I remember correctly I had not been sleeping well/sick(ish) the days previous, so you know what, my thoughtful wife let me sleep in to catch up on my lack of normalcy; when I woke up, which was probably around 1 pm, I know lazy huh?, the house was nearly spic and span! Christa did a wonderful job of cleaning the house, and since I a such a heavy sleeper, she even vacuumed, in the room I was sleeping; you probably looked at your buddies and/or girlfriends while you were reading this and said, “who cares about their house cleaning?!?!?” and I have an answer. To be honest, I had been particularly lazy for about a week or so, and I surely did not deserve for Christa to go far and above like this, but she did, because that how big her heart is, and she knows the feeling you get when you wake up to a freshly cleaned house and wanted to do something really nice for her lazy, useless husband. The rest of that day went pretty much downhill, in a good way, all three of us vegged out and even got a free redbox movie code, don’t remember the movie though, sorry.

Here’s one of the mountains that we conquered, that shouldn't have even been an anthill if somebody just did their job. Monday, our day to get stuff done, most times we schedule my doc appointments on Mondays so we can both go together; I think Christa does this so that she gets the right story, since she knows I’m a terrible listener and getting feedback from me is like playing the telephone game, great game by the way! Okay, back to the story, after making numerous phone calls on previous days to get my Peritoneal catheter surgery schedules, and no reply was every made, we made progress. Now, I’m going to tell you what is most frustrating about this. When we went for the consultation, which seemed to be filled with negativity about the whole process and idea from the doc, she signed off on getting the catheter placed and told us to talk to the girls up front about scheduling the surgery; when we get up there, we were told that we will receive a phone call about when to schedule the appointment. I have never been keen on pressuring people to do their job, generally I, as do most people with even an ounce of common sense, expect that if their job is to coordinate or schedule the surgeries for the clinic, that they could at least do that; this was not the case. Since I dislike hassling people, and really making phone calls to begin with, I waited a week for that mysterious phone call, no dice; I made the dreadful call and the receptionist directed me to the scheduler, straight to voice-mail. I don’t remember the voice-mail word for word but it went something like this, “hi, this is blah blah, please leave your name, social security# and date of birth as well as the purpose of your call. If this voice-mail is received prior to 4p you should receive a call back on the same day.”; I left all the info and a brief massage about how I was waiting to hear from them on when my surgery will be, granted I left the VM at 4:11 pm, so I thought I’d get a call the next day, Nope. A couple days later, went through the same mumbo-jumbo and still received no call back, this call was made at approximately 1 pm, more then enough time. The very next day, both Christa and I called, left VMs and I actually transferred back up front to have  handwritten note left for the illustrious scheduler, still no call back for a couple days. I honestly don’t know what her other responsibilities are in the office, but with that many VMs left, you would think a return call could be made, none of the VMs were irate, so I don’t see why she would have been scared; its really hard for a place called General Surgery Associates to make money, if surgeries aren't being scheduled. Anyways, back on point, Monday rolls around and we go in with a vendetta, we asked to speak personally with whoever does the scheduling, and if they aren't available we’d like to see a manager. It wasn't but two minutes and the scheduler came out to get some additional info, then disappeared for what seemed like 30 minutes, then BAM, appointment scheduled for March 14^th! What a relief, although it should have never been that hard to begin with.

With the Peritoneal surgery finally being setup, this week was a very accomplished week, and we really didn't do anything. However, on February 28^th we received a phone call from the transplant team. The phone call was really just a notice to setup a consultation but what made it exciting is that the ball was finally rolling on the transplant, March 6^th was the appointment; I cant go into detail on this yet because that would leave me nothing to write about in the “future” parts of my blog. Even though we finally got the Peritoneal surgery setup and the Transplant consultation, the week was fairly tough; dialysis was a killer due to cramping and twitching. Now, you may ask, “why is cramping so bad”, well, most people get cramps from dehydration and this is the case for me as well. However, during dialysis I am supposed to have fluid pulled out of my body during treatment because my kidneys don’t do it as well as they should anymore; if I leave it alone, or don’t pull out enough I start looking like a pregnant woman, swollen ankles, face and hands, not fun. This is where the cramping comes into play, during these past few treatments, if any amount over . 5 Ml is being attempted to be pulled out, I cramp; imagine the worst leg cramp you've ever had and put that pain in your entire leg(s) and then basically strap yourself down to a chair for four years, um I mean hours, without the possibility of parole. Here’s another fun part, I twitch randomly and nobody has an explanation why. By “twitch”, I mean that I black out for a split second, and flail, or spasm; if you have ever had seizures, or seen somebody seizing, you could compare it to that. The real scary and tremendously scary part of it all is that I have no warning, it just happens and I have fallen in the middle of the parking lot before due to it. You may call me crazy, but I often find comfort in knowing 1Cor10:13, that God will never put me through anything that I cannot handle, and knowing is half the battle; some of you will get that reference.

It’s a bit late, but March is National Kidney Month; I posted it on FB on both my Blog page and my personal page, you should have at least “liked” my blog page by now.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Have-a-Heart-Need-a-Kidney/333134736791971

Well, that should get you all the way up to March 4^thish, well subtracting the rest of the hospital stay, which I am still working on…slowly and the few weeks following; please be patient on those, as those will be completely from memory, and I had a terrible memory prior to all of this to begin with.