Bad Flashback

Bad Flashback

I’m sitting here in “the chair” closest to the dialysis center patient entrance/exit.  It’s 3:40PM; I’m almost a half-hour into the 4.25-hour session.  As James Brown (a former St. Albans resident, by the way) would say from time to time:  “I Feel Goooood!”  I’m accepting the changes that come my way, and sticking with the program when things get “slow.”  Just chatted with the medical staff who agree that all my numbers are looking good.  Dr. Patel even suggested that I contact the National Kidney Foundation about having them sponsor my athletic quests – if I’m serious, that is (and I am!).  I even applied for two more jobs - - this time, government admin (non-IT).  In short, all systems go.

Then I remember:  this is the chair/location I was in when I had The Nosebleed Session.

I had suffered from a lingering nosebleed all weekend long.  The problem wasn’t that it got worse; the problem was that it wouldn’t stop.  I’d gotten used to having nosebleeds from time to time because they would eventually stop.  Not this one.  It just kept leaking through the weekend.  When I looked at myself in the mirro on Monday morning, I knew that something was wrong.  My nose was mostly red and starting to swell a little.  My wife and I discussed whether I should just go straight to the hospital instead of going to dialysis that afternoon.

This is a tough story to write.  But it falls within my three rules, so I am going to try to finish it.

[Author’s note:  Odd coincidence:  the dialysis machine alarm, which indicates that a nurse/technician should check the machine “just in case”, did not go off once during this entire session.  This has only happened once or twice before in the 19 months I have been doing dialysis.]

[5/27/11:  I still don’t feel like finishing this.]

[6/2/11:  This subject is too depressing to write about.]