June 21
Today was a good day with no major issues with the catheter. Treatment went smoothly for most of morning. For some reason it has been a little challenging getting 3.0 to 3.2 kilograms of fluid out while cleaning my blood of toxins my kidney can no longer filter on its own. My BP (blood pressure) goes below 100/50, and the machine needs to be put in minimum to clean the blood only and no longer pull any more fluid that accumulated in a day and a half during the week and then from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday. My dialysis begins Saturday afternoon after I leave the clinic parking lot, and we have Sunday and Monday with dialysis starting on Tuesday with a new week of three treatments. I know I am a little ahead here.
For today, I saw Dr. A while he was making his rounds after I got hooked up on the machine. We talked about how well I have been doing on dialysis, and hinted about a kidney transplant, but told him I was not ready. He told me that there was a patient on dialysis for seventeen years. I believe it can relate to attitude and conviction and doing what’s right. I care, listen, and have a good attitude when I go to and from dialysis even though there are days of nervousness, frustration, and emotion. The only time I may have difficulty is when it is ridiculously hot and cold during the year. After Dr. A dismissed himself, I did my best to relax to allow treatment to work.
June 23
When it comes to catheters for dialysis, I am not the only patient. That does not matter. I have accesses issues. My fistula clotted off 10 months after it was placed and it never was used, and the two grafts placed in right and left arms gave a little trouble. The graft in the left arm worked for nine months before it clotted off and IR (Internal Radiology) doctors and nurses, and technicians did not get my graft to work for dialysis again. Because I was having the procedure done late, and because the graft was gone, I had a catheter placed. It was my fourth catheter placement, so I was not worried, but tired because it was a long day having two procedures done in one day. 😴😴. I do not remember if it was a Tuesday or a Thursday, I had left the clinic to go to the hospital, but because my procedures did not end until after 5 PM, I was admitted into the hospital that evening and had dialysis because not having dialysis until – I just remembered that it was a Tuesday – Thursday would be too long of a wait. Dr. A discussed it and agreed that it was a wise idea because by the time I got back to the clinic before it closed for the day. My former caregiver DKF was there for me that day and made sure I got me home the following day with no major issues. With the catheter back, I was back to sponge baths.😣.
June 25
What a rainy day this morning and early afternoon has proven to be. I do not mind the rain but having to go out in it gets my body aching and sore. Despite how rainy and wet it got today, getting dialysis today was not bad. With a company called Veyo issuing medical rides to companies in Milwaukee, Janesville, and Madison, Wisconsin, I find getting rides set up every Saturday makes me feel nervous when I do not know the company. Yes, I did not know the company, but getting to and from dialysis today was a pleasant experience. I do not like Veyo nor the company MTM very much, but I make it work. Anyway, today’s dialysis went smoothly until the last forty-five minutes of treatment. My blood pressure went below 100/50 and I got dizzy a little bit. I did my best to ride it out, but my dizziness got bad enough that I needed to be put on minimum for a few minutes. The machine was turned back on after ten minutes when my dizzy spell passed, but when I was thirty minutes away from being done, I asked to be put on minimum because my left arm started shaking uncontrollably. I have an appointment with Dr. H Monday afternoon over the airwaves – Google Doc – and will be discussing this shaking that has happened twice now this month. I left with only 1.8 kilograms of fluid taken out of my body today. As soon as I was unhooked and wheeled out to the scale and weighed, I was 107.3 kilograms, but we have to take off 17.9 and .5 kilograms before recording the outgoing weight. As far as I am concerned, I have mixed feelings about my outgoing weight today, but will check it out with Dr. A on Tuesday when we talk if he comes.
Please forgive me for not writing to share my life the past couple of days. I feel I have not been writing in my diary or journal lately. I cannot say I have been swamped outside of going to and from dialysis three times a week or visiting my friend DC here at Garden Court. I have been staying close to home right inside my place, dealing with aches and pains and redness under my sagging boobs, and breasts for the past few days of hot summer in Wisconsin. I seem to get red in the folds of my body and breasts when it gets hot, which can sometimes be a little painful. I am glad it is healing now since Gold Bond Powder has been helping it. My air conditioner has been running off for several days, keeping it cooler. Since I was home from dialysis yesterday afternoon to today, I have been watching 3ABN or Forensic Files on the Roku channel. I have made Forensic Files my marathon show for the weekend since HMM has Christmas movies. From what I understand, these Christmas movies will run for a week. I do not watch too many Christmas movies when it is not Christmas these days.
Magic Kitty
Magic has been a good boy these days. He has moments in time where he is a wild, feisty cat, but it is him, and he is two years old. The other day, my caregiver JP went through the folder I had gotten with his adoption; she recognized his given name Kirk and said he was one of the few feisty kittens in humane society. She also said that Magic was deemed feral, which explains his demeanor sometimes and his not knowing the litter box the first several days of his new life in a loving home. Over the past several days, I have noticed that my temper with him has softened as he gets into the closets or kitchen cupboard above the refrigerator. The name Kirk sparked memories JP had when she once worked and volunteered at the local humane society. I have been putting up with Magic more these days because raising my voice does no good to him or me. My voice rises, and he does not listen anyway, LOL. When he gets into the closets, I aim a water bottle his way and squirt, listening to his protest as he runs away. He voices his opinion on discipline, yet I love the little stinker very much. He is my fur baby today and always. Thank God for helping me with my patience and temper with Magic today and in the future. Thank you for helping me, Jesus.
Some Emotion Lately
I must admit that I have been a little emotional these days, but it comes from the redness under my breast and body folds. I have been quieter at dialysis this past week because I have known the known and thoughts about July coming and what happens on July 3, 2022. That is a week from today, and I will be fifty-two years old. I feel older than that sometimes – like today – muscles ache and moving about can sound like a creak and crunch along the way. I feel older than my actual age and using a walker sometimes can be frustrating. Having to put a brace and shoe on) to walk any distance is not a problem, but I wish it were not happening. Do not take what you once did so long ago for granted. I am grateful that I can still walk, be independent and do things for myself even though I want to be safe in following through with my routines using and sitting on a walker. I have fallen so many times because of balance issues.
Ideas
As I continue to write my Life in Words blog and share what matters to me with others, ideas come and go. I add what comes to mind, or I do not. I know I have lacked my idea of writing in my blog like a newsletter, but that does not stop me from creating innovative ideas to add to my blog, right? It is my blog. Even though ideas still come through, I have yet to make some of them known to my readers. I have not been super busy, but I have been affected by the heat of the summer that has put my blog aside, and I get to it when I can. Sunday is the day I can get caught before relaxing and getting it done. I have been taking the time to read and play games on the phone or iPad these days as well to relax.
Time to Go
Even though it is only 6 PM here this evening in Wisconsin, I am going to say it is time for me to go to do other things. It is still early enough for me to begin a project that I plan to follow through. I am going to good night early and come back tomorrow or during the week sometime. This weekend has been great! Good night.
Okay, I had another dream that I remember, and had last night. I will be honest that I had watched two seasons out of three about people being haunted. The show is called Haunted. It was a big mistake watching the episodes that was before me on Netflix. Want to talk about strange or whatever, it was some dream.e
I was visiting a country because there was a convention. The country was London, England. I was not the only American who was at this convention, but I was having an enjoyable time, and meeting other people without the feeling nervous or small. I met people my age and a little younger, and I became a part of a small group of people who I spent time with when the convention was done for the day. We went to see the sights of famous places in London, and we found a wonderful and beautiful place that was open to the public day and night, and yet the place closed at 3 AM like a pub or bar. As we explored the place, I was beginning to see things that were there my group of friends did not see. It was not that they did not believe me, the group thought that I was hallucinating or something. I pointed at the floor and one of the girls in the group said that she could see a plate of food that had cheese and crackers, and venison on it. She went to pick it up and hand it to one of boys who could not believe what was happening as he began to see what I was seeing. He turned around with the plate, and suddenly we see a bunch of garbage bags in the room we were in, and they were ready to go outside. The boy ended w witalking toward the garbage bags and suddenly jumped into the pile and disappeared. The rest of the group and I ran out of the room and went into another room that had a long table with chairs. We sat down to catch our breaths and discuss what we just did and saw. We did not know of any hauntings nor cared to know, but one of the men in our group decided to investigate hauntings in London, England, and he did find that the place was not on the list. We found that very strange indeed. We got out of the room and began to leave when I had started to talk like a little girl, and the group looked at me with strange faces as if they thought that I was being possessed. The plate of food that disappeared with the boy in a different room was on the floor, and I needed help picking it up. One of the girls did pick up the plate and scattered food, and handed it to me, and then I left the room from another door, and exited out the building with no problem. The group of people I was with never came out, and I was alone on the street. I got back to the convention as if I knew London, and people there were asking questions and one of them asked where I have been for the past four hours of my day. I looked at the people and thought I had gone crazy, and I told them I went for a walk with some friends I had met there at the convention, and they looked at me with awe, and one of my roommates said that she saw me leaving alone and talking to myself. I looked at my roommate and I said that I could see the people I was talking to. My roommate asked me to give more detail of my new friends and did just that with precise and perfect descriptions, and the next thing I know, I was being shown some pictures, and my friends were in several. My roommate showed me the back of the pictures that said 1945 on them, and this group were killed in a fire. My roommate asked me where I went, and I told her only three blocks away to a building that was beautiful on the outside, and it had one room with garbage bags ready to go out to a dumpster, and another room had a long table with chairs where we sat and discussed the strangeness in the building, and how one of the boys jumped into the pile of garbage bags, and disappeared with a plate of cheese, crackers, and venison, then the plate reappeared before I left the room on the floor of the last room I was in with the group. My roommate said that the place I went to the very place where the fire was, and what I saw were the people who died in that fire in 1945. My roommate had explained that the building I went to was has been remodeled on the outside only, but the inside of the building has been the same since 1945. I told her there was a sign that read from 8 AM to 3 AM. My roommate said that there is no sign, but she believed I saw the sign. The building used to be a rest home for the mentally challenged young folk from 1905 to 1945 when the fire killed the group of people I was hanging with. I told her that I wondered why the group never came out with me. My roommate said that I must have taken them home where they lived for a reason, and I looked at her and told her that I even talked like a little girl before one of the girls picked up the spilled plate of food that had materialized in the room. My roommate said that was a sign to let them know that I was going to be okay and that is why the room had two exits, and I took the one that was the opposite from my group of friendughs. I was allowed to exit the building without any hesitation from my ghostly friends who were solid in my eyes. Looking at my roommate, I had this strange look and feeling to tell her that this was a bunch of baloney, but I did see that there was information about this haunted place. I mentioned that there was a man who was looking for information about that very building, and my roommate said he was just going through the motions to make it look like he was. I said that he said it was not haunted. My roommate mother said after listening for the past forty-five minutes that the man who said that was a relative of hers, and that he was killed in that fire in 1945 along with his two sisters. My roommate looked at her mother and said something that scared me a little, because her words were muffled and short, and her mother stopped talking and continued to listen. The others at the convention were there listening and quiet until they realized that my experience had ended with the idea that I was prone to outside forces of strange things. I looked at all those people and saw faces I no longer knew and walked out of the convention for good, and as I did so, I walked into my apartment in the United States and shutting the door to the life I left, living a life that became my very own without limitation. I had a cat who became a part of my world, and we had bonded without any problems. I never went back to London nor saw my new group of ghostly friends again.
Why 1945 London, England? My group of ghostly friends were dressed in an earlier period, but I did not mind. The ghostly friends were not transparent or had any aura about them that made them go through walls. Hmm?
