Bob Here.
I'm about to unveil a starling scientific discovery, so I hope you're all sitting down.
Ready to have your world rocked? Okay, here it is:
Men are different than women.
I know. Quite a revelation, eh? Just hold your applause, if that's even possible.
Having raised a son and a daughter, I got to observe the fascinating differences between boys and girls at all the various life stages. My daughter liked to play with dollhouses. My son wanted to blow them up. As a young teen, my daughter's idea of active socialization was talking on the phone for hours. My son's was racing his friends downhill on a skateboard to see who could survive with the least serious injury. When they were learning to drive, my daughter would get herself settled in the car, check her seatbelt, mirrors, radio settings, note the speed limit, signal all her turns and lane changes, and be courteous to anyone wanting to turn in front of her. With my son, your butt would barely touch the seat before he peeled out, leaving half the rubber on the tires in the road, and his method of driving could best be described as Deathmatch 1996.
So, it should come as no surprise to people who have been on dialysis for a long time that there are major differences between men and women dialysis patients as well.
I'm about to unveil a starling scientific discovery, so I hope you're all sitting down.
Ready to have your world rocked? Okay, here it is:
Men are different than women.
I know. Quite a revelation, eh? Just hold your applause, if that's even possible.
Having raised a son and a daughter, I got to observe the fascinating differences between boys and girls at all the various life stages. My daughter liked to play with dollhouses. My son wanted to blow them up. As a young teen, my daughter's idea of active socialization was talking on the phone for hours. My son's was racing his friends downhill on a skateboard to see who could survive with the least serious injury. When they were learning to drive, my daughter would get herself settled in the car, check her seatbelt, mirrors, radio settings, note the speed limit, signal all her turns and lane changes, and be courteous to anyone wanting to turn in front of her. With my son, your butt would barely touch the seat before he peeled out, leaving half the rubber on the tires in the road, and his method of driving could best be described as Deathmatch 1996.
So, it should come as no surprise to people who have been on dialysis for a long time that there are major differences between men and women dialysis patients as well.
Having been on dialysis for over seven years, I've had a pretty good opportunity to observe the gender differences in the ways people carry out their treatment regimens. I've organized my thoughts into three major categories. (Remember? Thirty plus years in Finance? Symmetrical thinking? Driving people around me buggy? Everything organized to within an inch of its life?)
Anyway, the three groupings I came up with are:
Preparation
Noises
Staff Relations
Now, Cal-Berkeley has not yet phoned for an interview, but when it comes to dialysis, these differences are actually quite profound.
Early on in my dialysis life, I had a good opportunity to observe the differences between men and women in a kind of two-person case study. I was in a good-sized center of about 24 chairs. Sitting directly across from me were a man and woman of similar age.
When the woman arrived, it took her a solid 10 to 15 minutes to get herself settled and ready for her treatment. She was wearing neatly pressed sweat pants and a loose but comfortable blouse that looked like it had been bought at Nordstrom that day. She would stop on the way to her chair to have little chitchats with the receptionist, charge nurse, social worker, and nutritionist. She would go over to the scale to get her weight, roll her eyes with a "huh??,” get off the scale, reset it, then check it again. Complain to the nurse that the scale was inaccurate.
She then went over to the sink to thoroughly wash her arm (fistula) and make sure it was all dried off.
She brought a quilt to make her chair more comfortable, so it would take her a couple of minutes to get it spread over the chair just right. Set up a pillow as well. Get her TV arranged at just the correct angle. Check her machine over. Unlock the wheels on her chair so that she could re-arrange it a bit. Re-lock the chair wheels. Finally sit down. Decide she didn't like the chair where it was and move it again. Sit down. Apparently remember that there was a spicy piece of gossip she needed to cover with the receptionist, runs back to the lobby. Comes back, re-arranges her chair one more time. Sits down again. Chats with the attendant who has been ready to put her on all this time. Then she's finally ready to begin her session.
Phew. It was tiring just watching all this.
Just then, perfect timing, the guy who sits next to her comes in. He was wearing shorts that had an unidentifiable stain across the front and a sweatshirt that looked like it had been dropped off a cliff.
The charge nurse greets him, saying, "How was your day?"
He replies with a noise that sounds something like "Sucky."
He gets on the scale, shrugs when he sees the result, and since he's not carrying anything heads right over to his chair and plops himself down, reclines as far as the chair will go, putting his feet up, tells the attendant to get his TV, and promptly falls asleep before his treatment even begins.
I started laughing, causing my neighbor to wonder whether my glue was melting.
But, this was fairly typical of the different ways men and women prepare for their treatments, as I observed in many other instances over the years.
The noises made by men and women during their treatments are very different as well.
This same woman apparently viewed dialysis as a good time to catch up on her socialization, both with continuing dialog with various staff members and on her cell phone with friends and family. She had her TV going, but it was hard to believe that she took in anything that was on because she was talking the whole time.
It made me think of an old Marx Brothers movie where Groucho says to Margaret Dumont, "You know you haven't stopped talking since I got here? You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle."
The noises you heard from the guy, her neighbor, ranged from outright snoring, to grunting, to shifting positions in his chair, with the occasional "Dang blood pressure cuff" and "Pull my blanket up, willya?" sprinkled in.
By the end of each of their treatments, you could have counted the number of words uttered by the guy on one hand. But you would have needed a NASA computer to count her number of words.
Women are much more analytical in their dealings with members of staff.
Over the months, I had the opportunity to observe the different types of reactions when an alarm would go off, or if something was amiss with their treatments.
For instance, both experienced a little bleeding during their treatments along the way. (It sounds way more gruesome than it is. Experienced dialysis patients know that it just happens sometimes.)
Here was her reaction when it happened to her:
"Excuse me, Mary? Sorry to bother you. I think my arterial needle might have shifted a little bit and there's some seepage. Probably just needs to be adjusted slightly at the entry point. Then if you could just please cover it up with a fresh gauze, that would solve the problem. Thank you very much."
Here was his reaction when it happened to him:
"Holy crap! Get over here!"
Then there was the social worker's assessment. For non dialysis patients, every six months or so the social worker will ask a series of questions, most of which are quite personal in nature. The purpose is basically to assess how you're managing the dialysis lifestyle.
When the social worker came over to assess the woman, she brought a comfortable chair along, knowing that the interview was going to take a while and would go off on innumerable tangents.
With the guy, she remained standing. She knew that the responses were going to be single-word in nature, if not single-syllable. In fact, some of his initial responses were indecipherable grunts.
Here are a couple of examples of the types of questions asked and the different responses.
Social worker: "Do you have a significant support structure at home?"
Her response: "Well, there's my husband, of course. But he can be a little...oh, I don't know...vacant at times? So my mom stops in every Tuesday for tea and we stay up to speed on what's happening in each other's lives. She's been great. Then there's my best friend. You'll never believe what happened to her last week..."(followed by a lengthy and involved tangent that had nothing to do with the original question.)
His response: "Yeah. My wife. Think her name's Mabel."
Social worker: "How do you feel like you're handling your dialysis treatments in your personal life?"
Her response: "I think I handle it pretty well. Of course there are always times when you don't feel well, or you're really exhausted after your treatment. I was telling my friends about it at my hair salon the other day. By the way, know what someone at the salon told me last week??" (Another lengthy tangent, passing along a juicy tidbit of gossip.)
His response: "How much time I got left?"
So, my observations definitely supported my stunning theory that there are differences between men and women.
Even in the way they handle dialysis.
Maybe even, especially in the way they handle dialysis.
Thanks for reading. If you're a dialysis patient, I hope all your treatments are good ones. If you're not a patient, I hope life's treatment is a good one.
Take care.
Anyway, the three groupings I came up with are:
Preparation
Noises
Staff Relations
Now, Cal-Berkeley has not yet phoned for an interview, but when it comes to dialysis, these differences are actually quite profound.
Early on in my dialysis life, I had a good opportunity to observe the differences between men and women in a kind of two-person case study. I was in a good-sized center of about 24 chairs. Sitting directly across from me were a man and woman of similar age.
When the woman arrived, it took her a solid 10 to 15 minutes to get herself settled and ready for her treatment. She was wearing neatly pressed sweat pants and a loose but comfortable blouse that looked like it had been bought at Nordstrom that day. She would stop on the way to her chair to have little chitchats with the receptionist, charge nurse, social worker, and nutritionist. She would go over to the scale to get her weight, roll her eyes with a "huh??,” get off the scale, reset it, then check it again. Complain to the nurse that the scale was inaccurate.
She then went over to the sink to thoroughly wash her arm (fistula) and make sure it was all dried off.
She brought a quilt to make her chair more comfortable, so it would take her a couple of minutes to get it spread over the chair just right. Set up a pillow as well. Get her TV arranged at just the correct angle. Check her machine over. Unlock the wheels on her chair so that she could re-arrange it a bit. Re-lock the chair wheels. Finally sit down. Decide she didn't like the chair where it was and move it again. Sit down. Apparently remember that there was a spicy piece of gossip she needed to cover with the receptionist, runs back to the lobby. Comes back, re-arranges her chair one more time. Sits down again. Chats with the attendant who has been ready to put her on all this time. Then she's finally ready to begin her session.
Phew. It was tiring just watching all this.
Just then, perfect timing, the guy who sits next to her comes in. He was wearing shorts that had an unidentifiable stain across the front and a sweatshirt that looked like it had been dropped off a cliff.
The charge nurse greets him, saying, "How was your day?"
He replies with a noise that sounds something like "Sucky."
He gets on the scale, shrugs when he sees the result, and since he's not carrying anything heads right over to his chair and plops himself down, reclines as far as the chair will go, putting his feet up, tells the attendant to get his TV, and promptly falls asleep before his treatment even begins.
I started laughing, causing my neighbor to wonder whether my glue was melting.
But, this was fairly typical of the different ways men and women prepare for their treatments, as I observed in many other instances over the years.
The noises made by men and women during their treatments are very different as well.
This same woman apparently viewed dialysis as a good time to catch up on her socialization, both with continuing dialog with various staff members and on her cell phone with friends and family. She had her TV going, but it was hard to believe that she took in anything that was on because she was talking the whole time.
It made me think of an old Marx Brothers movie where Groucho says to Margaret Dumont, "You know you haven't stopped talking since I got here? You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle."
The noises you heard from the guy, her neighbor, ranged from outright snoring, to grunting, to shifting positions in his chair, with the occasional "Dang blood pressure cuff" and "Pull my blanket up, willya?" sprinkled in.
By the end of each of their treatments, you could have counted the number of words uttered by the guy on one hand. But you would have needed a NASA computer to count her number of words.
Women are much more analytical in their dealings with members of staff.
Over the months, I had the opportunity to observe the different types of reactions when an alarm would go off, or if something was amiss with their treatments.
For instance, both experienced a little bleeding during their treatments along the way. (It sounds way more gruesome than it is. Experienced dialysis patients know that it just happens sometimes.)
Here was her reaction when it happened to her:
"Excuse me, Mary? Sorry to bother you. I think my arterial needle might have shifted a little bit and there's some seepage. Probably just needs to be adjusted slightly at the entry point. Then if you could just please cover it up with a fresh gauze, that would solve the problem. Thank you very much."
Here was his reaction when it happened to him:
"Holy crap! Get over here!"
Then there was the social worker's assessment. For non dialysis patients, every six months or so the social worker will ask a series of questions, most of which are quite personal in nature. The purpose is basically to assess how you're managing the dialysis lifestyle.
When the social worker came over to assess the woman, she brought a comfortable chair along, knowing that the interview was going to take a while and would go off on innumerable tangents.
With the guy, she remained standing. She knew that the responses were going to be single-word in nature, if not single-syllable. In fact, some of his initial responses were indecipherable grunts.
Here are a couple of examples of the types of questions asked and the different responses.
Social worker: "Do you have a significant support structure at home?"
Her response: "Well, there's my husband, of course. But he can be a little...oh, I don't know...vacant at times? So my mom stops in every Tuesday for tea and we stay up to speed on what's happening in each other's lives. She's been great. Then there's my best friend. You'll never believe what happened to her last week..."(followed by a lengthy and involved tangent that had nothing to do with the original question.)
His response: "Yeah. My wife. Think her name's Mabel."
Social worker: "How do you feel like you're handling your dialysis treatments in your personal life?"
Her response: "I think I handle it pretty well. Of course there are always times when you don't feel well, or you're really exhausted after your treatment. I was telling my friends about it at my hair salon the other day. By the way, know what someone at the salon told me last week??" (Another lengthy tangent, passing along a juicy tidbit of gossip.)
His response: "How much time I got left?"
So, my observations definitely supported my stunning theory that there are differences between men and women.
Even in the way they handle dialysis.
Maybe even, especially in the way they handle dialysis.
Thanks for reading. If you're a dialysis patient, I hope all your treatments are good ones. If you're not a patient, I hope life's treatment is a good one.
Take care.
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