Bob Here
Home dialysis is a very lonely activity, and you know what?
Most home patients wouldn't have it any other way.
If I may be so bold as to project my personal feelings on all my brothers and sisters doing home treatments (don't worry, nothing dirty), I daresay most folks would just as soon not subject our loved ones, or anybody else for that matter, to the monotonous, tedious, humdrum, and frequently nauseating routines in which we partake in order to avoid an early membership in that big kidney-failure group in the sky.
And, more times than not, our isolationist desire works out just fine.
And then (drumroll, please), company arrives.
Home dialysis is a very lonely activity, and you know what?
Most home patients wouldn't have it any other way.
If I may be so bold as to project my personal feelings on all my brothers and sisters doing home treatments (don't worry, nothing dirty), I daresay most folks would just as soon not subject our loved ones, or anybody else for that matter, to the monotonous, tedious, humdrum, and frequently nauseating routines in which we partake in order to avoid an early membership in that big kidney-failure group in the sky.
And, more times than not, our isolationist desire works out just fine.
And then (drumroll, please), company arrives.
Now, don't get me wrong, I normally welcome visitors with open arms, bandages and all. Heck, we live at the beach. If we didn't want company, we would have moved to some God-forsaken adobe hut on the plains of Texas.
I hope I'm not insulting any of my nomad-leaning friends, but at one point in our lives, we were regularly making the six-hour drive between Dallas and Lubbock when our son was attending Texas Tech.
And, I'm here to tell you, you ain't seen isolated 'til you've driven between those two metropolitan areas, where your idea of company is a tumbleweed blowing down the dirt road, and your options for fine dining start and stop at the local Dairy Queen.
Yep, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have to fend off too many unwanted drop-ins living out in those boonies.
But nope, we live at the shore and there's nothing to keep friends and family from visiting other than my well-known predilection for being permanently parked on the anti-social side of the desire for companionship.
It's still not unusual for me to plot devious ways to get out of pending social functions or invitations. Whenever I come up with a new or slightly used excuse, all of which are at various levels on the "lame scale," the wife will almost always give me her infamous, "what-could-I-have-been-thinking" look before walking away in disgust.
However, the lure of the ocean is strong enough for people in the know to put up with my idiosyncrasies and occasionally off-putting personality and set up temporary residence in our humble abode.
Which brings up an interesting juxtaposition between guests and The Big D, home edition.
Long-time dialysis patients can become somewhat taciturn about our regimen, even when something goes wrong.
"Uh Bob?"
"Huh?"
"You've got blood running down your arm onto the floor."
"Yeah yeah. I'll clean it up later."
"Well...do you want me to..."
"Hey! Do you mind? I'm at a really important part of my book."
However, to anyone who hasn't gone through a few thousand treatments, the sights and sounds of dialysis can be a bit disquieting.
Not long ago, we took the plunge (That's a pun. You'll get it later.) and decided to partake of the domestic form of torture known as getting one's bathroom remodeled. (Get it? Bathroom...plunge?)
And let me tell you, waterboarding has nothing on this exercise.
I wrote about the experience previously, about getting to a point where I had to lug my machine to our basement because our normal setup is right outside said bathroom. I somehow managed to avoid hernia surgery and moved the operation back upstairs when our contractor was adding some finishing touches.
He was an affable young man and his curiosity was peaked by our home process, and he decided he'd like to watch as we finished up one of our sessions.
I tried to talk some sense into the boy, but he wouldn't hear it.
Everything was humming along smoothly and I even took an unusually active role in describing what we were doing every step along the way.
The wife was giving me a strange look.
"What?" I asked her.
"Since when did you become such a tour guide?" she asked. "Normally, if I get you to string more than two sentences together at once, it's like a new record."
The contractor snorted, but I ignored the barb and went on.
"Now it's time to take the needles out," I said.
I noticed the guy took a couple of steps back.
"You really don't have to stay if you don't want to," I said.
"Uh, no. No. Go ahead. It's no problem," he said.
I nodded, but, being a guy and all, I knew what was happening.
Boys are taught at a young age that if you retreat from something scary, you acquire a permanent membership in the "candyass club." If you're going to chicken out for whatever reason, you just hope and pray that there's nobody around to see it happen. Especially, let's be honest, a female of the species.
I tried again to break through the "macho barrier."
"Look, seriously, this isn't for everybody. We won't think any less of you if you don't want to watch."
"No no. Go ahead," he said, his face a bit ashen.
Now, I won't get too graphic, but it's just about impossible to take two one-inch, fifteen gauge needles out of a person's arm without there being a little, shall we call it, spillage?
Of course pressure is applied instantly to keep the "spillage" from becoming a deluge.
So, I was still a bit doubtful, but without any alternative, out came the needles.
"Jumping Jehoshaphat!" yelled the contractor.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Uh, oh...yeah sure. Well, I've got another appointment...so anyway...thanks for the demo...uh...see ya..."
At that, he headed down the stairs and out the door like the house was on fire.
The wife and I just looked at each other.
"Well, I tried to warn him," I said.
She just shook her head. Fortunately, she spared me her description of how the male gentalia outweighed their brains by a double-digit multiple.
But I knew that's what she was thinking.
Anyway, this past summer, after my favorite baseball team won an important game, the wife, all flowers and roses, came prancing in and informed me that she had invited an old friend from work and her spouse to come spend the weekend at the beach.
See, she does this strategically after something positive happens in sports, knowing how that tends to put me in a positive frame of mind, and keeping her from having to remove all the sharp objects from the house.
I just looked at her, my good mood draining out of me fast.
"Oh? And where, pray tell, will they be staying?" I asked, although I already knew the answer.
"Here, of course."
"Ah. Of course. Well, you know I just might..."
"No. You're not going to a hotel."
So, that was the end of that.
Now, I knew these folks too, and the visit started out pretty well. They came in on a Friday after we had already treated, and I normally take Saturdays off.
But on Sunday, our friends dropped the bombshell that they would like to watch an entire dialysis treatment, soup-to-nuts.
"Why would you want to do that?" I asked. "Don't you have enough giving you nightmares these days? Think about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton being president."
No, once again, they insisted. They wanted to see what this whole dialysis mishegoss was all about.
Again, outside of shoving them out the door and changing the locks, we didn't have much of a choice.
So, it finally came time to start setting up. Our guests came upstairs.
Donna's friend said, "Now I want you guys to just act normal, like we're not even here."
I said, "Right. Now put this mask on."
"What? A surgical mask? Why? Oh never mind. Of course."
I handed one to her spouse, who looked like he'd rather be having a prostate exam than be partaking in this insanity.
"You too," I said.
"When's the last time you washed your hands?" I asked the woman.
"Uh, I...I don't really remember..."
"Go do it now please. Use the anti-bacterial soap and dry off with a paper towel."
She went hesitantly into our newly remodeled bathroom.
"You're next," I said to the guy. He seemed like he was giving serious consideration to bailing.
"Bob?" the woman called out from the loo. "You do know that when we said we wanted to watch, it didn't mean we wanted to participate. Right?"
The wife stepped in. "He's just being his usual curmudgeon self," she said. "Technically, yes, visitors are supposed to wash their hands and wear masks, but we're not like saying you guys aren't clean or anything."
She gave me a withering look. So I figured I'd: 1. Stop giving her friends a hard time, and 2. Watch closely to be sure she didn't slip a little bleach into my lines "by accident."
But, we got through the treatment without any fatalities.
When I put my needles in, the couple stepped away from the stairway in case one or both felt a fainting spell come on.
So, no matter how much I try to warn our visitors that dialysis is clearly not a spectator sport, it seems unavoidable that at times, company truly does love misery.
Thanks for reading. Take care.
I hope I'm not insulting any of my nomad-leaning friends, but at one point in our lives, we were regularly making the six-hour drive between Dallas and Lubbock when our son was attending Texas Tech.
And, I'm here to tell you, you ain't seen isolated 'til you've driven between those two metropolitan areas, where your idea of company is a tumbleweed blowing down the dirt road, and your options for fine dining start and stop at the local Dairy Queen.
Yep, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have to fend off too many unwanted drop-ins living out in those boonies.
But nope, we live at the shore and there's nothing to keep friends and family from visiting other than my well-known predilection for being permanently parked on the anti-social side of the desire for companionship.
It's still not unusual for me to plot devious ways to get out of pending social functions or invitations. Whenever I come up with a new or slightly used excuse, all of which are at various levels on the "lame scale," the wife will almost always give me her infamous, "what-could-I-have-been-thinking" look before walking away in disgust.
However, the lure of the ocean is strong enough for people in the know to put up with my idiosyncrasies and occasionally off-putting personality and set up temporary residence in our humble abode.
Which brings up an interesting juxtaposition between guests and The Big D, home edition.
Long-time dialysis patients can become somewhat taciturn about our regimen, even when something goes wrong.
"Uh Bob?"
"Huh?"
"You've got blood running down your arm onto the floor."
"Yeah yeah. I'll clean it up later."
"Well...do you want me to..."
"Hey! Do you mind? I'm at a really important part of my book."
However, to anyone who hasn't gone through a few thousand treatments, the sights and sounds of dialysis can be a bit disquieting.
Not long ago, we took the plunge (That's a pun. You'll get it later.) and decided to partake of the domestic form of torture known as getting one's bathroom remodeled. (Get it? Bathroom...plunge?)
And let me tell you, waterboarding has nothing on this exercise.
I wrote about the experience previously, about getting to a point where I had to lug my machine to our basement because our normal setup is right outside said bathroom. I somehow managed to avoid hernia surgery and moved the operation back upstairs when our contractor was adding some finishing touches.
He was an affable young man and his curiosity was peaked by our home process, and he decided he'd like to watch as we finished up one of our sessions.
I tried to talk some sense into the boy, but he wouldn't hear it.
Everything was humming along smoothly and I even took an unusually active role in describing what we were doing every step along the way.
The wife was giving me a strange look.
"What?" I asked her.
"Since when did you become such a tour guide?" she asked. "Normally, if I get you to string more than two sentences together at once, it's like a new record."
The contractor snorted, but I ignored the barb and went on.
"Now it's time to take the needles out," I said.
I noticed the guy took a couple of steps back.
"You really don't have to stay if you don't want to," I said.
"Uh, no. No. Go ahead. It's no problem," he said.
I nodded, but, being a guy and all, I knew what was happening.
Boys are taught at a young age that if you retreat from something scary, you acquire a permanent membership in the "candyass club." If you're going to chicken out for whatever reason, you just hope and pray that there's nobody around to see it happen. Especially, let's be honest, a female of the species.
I tried again to break through the "macho barrier."
"Look, seriously, this isn't for everybody. We won't think any less of you if you don't want to watch."
"No no. Go ahead," he said, his face a bit ashen.
Now, I won't get too graphic, but it's just about impossible to take two one-inch, fifteen gauge needles out of a person's arm without there being a little, shall we call it, spillage?
Of course pressure is applied instantly to keep the "spillage" from becoming a deluge.
So, I was still a bit doubtful, but without any alternative, out came the needles.
"Jumping Jehoshaphat!" yelled the contractor.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Uh, oh...yeah sure. Well, I've got another appointment...so anyway...thanks for the demo...uh...see ya..."
At that, he headed down the stairs and out the door like the house was on fire.
The wife and I just looked at each other.
"Well, I tried to warn him," I said.
She just shook her head. Fortunately, she spared me her description of how the male gentalia outweighed their brains by a double-digit multiple.
But I knew that's what she was thinking.
Anyway, this past summer, after my favorite baseball team won an important game, the wife, all flowers and roses, came prancing in and informed me that she had invited an old friend from work and her spouse to come spend the weekend at the beach.
See, she does this strategically after something positive happens in sports, knowing how that tends to put me in a positive frame of mind, and keeping her from having to remove all the sharp objects from the house.
I just looked at her, my good mood draining out of me fast.
"Oh? And where, pray tell, will they be staying?" I asked, although I already knew the answer.
"Here, of course."
"Ah. Of course. Well, you know I just might..."
"No. You're not going to a hotel."
So, that was the end of that.
Now, I knew these folks too, and the visit started out pretty well. They came in on a Friday after we had already treated, and I normally take Saturdays off.
But on Sunday, our friends dropped the bombshell that they would like to watch an entire dialysis treatment, soup-to-nuts.
"Why would you want to do that?" I asked. "Don't you have enough giving you nightmares these days? Think about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton being president."
No, once again, they insisted. They wanted to see what this whole dialysis mishegoss was all about.
Again, outside of shoving them out the door and changing the locks, we didn't have much of a choice.
So, it finally came time to start setting up. Our guests came upstairs.
Donna's friend said, "Now I want you guys to just act normal, like we're not even here."
I said, "Right. Now put this mask on."
"What? A surgical mask? Why? Oh never mind. Of course."
I handed one to her spouse, who looked like he'd rather be having a prostate exam than be partaking in this insanity.
"You too," I said.
"When's the last time you washed your hands?" I asked the woman.
"Uh, I...I don't really remember..."
"Go do it now please. Use the anti-bacterial soap and dry off with a paper towel."
She went hesitantly into our newly remodeled bathroom.
"You're next," I said to the guy. He seemed like he was giving serious consideration to bailing.
"Bob?" the woman called out from the loo. "You do know that when we said we wanted to watch, it didn't mean we wanted to participate. Right?"
The wife stepped in. "He's just being his usual curmudgeon self," she said. "Technically, yes, visitors are supposed to wash their hands and wear masks, but we're not like saying you guys aren't clean or anything."
She gave me a withering look. So I figured I'd: 1. Stop giving her friends a hard time, and 2. Watch closely to be sure she didn't slip a little bleach into my lines "by accident."
But, we got through the treatment without any fatalities.
When I put my needles in, the couple stepped away from the stairway in case one or both felt a fainting spell come on.
So, no matter how much I try to warn our visitors that dialysis is clearly not a spectator sport, it seems unavoidable that at times, company truly does love misery.
Thanks for reading. Take care.
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