I think about this blog every once and a while, but I have lots of excuses why I haven't updated it in a very long time. My first excuse was that my life was boring and I didn't think anyone wanted to follow along and listen to my story about dialysis. My second excuse, if you keep reading you will see, is that I got a second chance at life and updating my blog wasn't high on my list at the time. Sorry for anyone that might have needed insight into my experiences at the time, it wasn't a very high point in my life but with God's healing hand I am on the other side. I've had a lot of people ask about my story and how I'm doing so I thought I would catch this blog up as best as I can remember. I'll repost my Facebook posts from the past and hope they do a better job of showing what was going on. If you have been following my Facebook you can ignore any of the posts with Facebook {Date} as those will just be copies of what you have already seen.
Since my last post was after my first month on Peritoneal Dialysis, I like to call this month The Manual Month because it was before I receive my automated machine that allowed me to do my dialysis at night while I slept, I will do a short Dialysis update that will cover the whole year of 2013.
2013 in a nutshell. 2013 started out with home dialysis. My daily routine for all of 2013 was to make sure I was in bed by 10:00pm every night in order to get my prescribed 8 hours of Dialysis in before getting up and going about my day. For anyone reading this blog looking for encouragement before starting dialysis you've come to the right place, I am thankful for my time on Dialysis because it took me from next to useless and gave me enough energy to keep up with my family, not much more but enough. My viewpoint is completely from my Peritoneal Dialysis experience and I can't speak to any other type. Believe it or not, I am thankful for my time doing Dialysis. I absolutely loved my dialysis center visits with my monthly angels who checked me out and made sure I stayed healthy (Fred and Friends, you know who you are). Sure, they stuck me with literally hundreds of needles and I called them vampires frequently, but they always met me with a smile and encouragement and taught me how to take care of myself while I waited patiently for a transplant. I freaked them out when I brought Dr. Pepper to the clinic, I was their only patient who could tolerate the Phosphorous so I got away with a lot more than most. I look back on that year with no complaints, knowing that it was a necessary time and it definitely helped me feel so much better than I did for the previous 3 years where I could feel my energy and stamina go down hill. I finally felt closer to what I thought was normal (I had forgotten what normal felt like, more on that later). The dialysis itself was a chore but a necessary and accepted chore. I soon was able to load and connect myself to my machine in my sleep, I'm fairly sure I actually did it in my sleep at least once. My family was incredible during this time, my wife had to sleep through the clicks and whines and sloshes that the machine made during the night. We looked forward to Saturday nights because I didn't have to hook to the machine those nights and the bedroom was so quiet it was almost distracting. My boys were my muscles and they carried up my 10 pound solution boxes whenever I asked, not one single time did I hear a complaint or had to repeat myself (I wish they would be that responsive now when I asked about homework and emptying the dishwasher). More on muscles later, but one of the main downsides to Peritoneal Dialysis is the toll that it took on my body. Pumping 5 pounds of sugar water into my abdomen and letting it soak into my body every night did a number on my belly and my muscles. My ABS stretched to accommodate and along with little to no exercise, or desire to exercise, I'm sure I lost 20 to 30 pounds of muscles over the year. I tried my best to not let my requirement to be tied to a machine every night hold me back too much. I still traveled with our church youth and toted my machine and 100 pounds of supplies with me everywhere I went. It's not very convenient, and sometimes was a downright pain but what was my other choice? I wasn't going to let this machine make me sit in my house like a hermit, I still had baseball and football games to watch, my first-born son was graduating and there was no way I was missing any of that even if my ankles swelled up to grapefruit after a long day on my feet. So that's what I did for all of 2013, I survived and tried to instill some sort of normal into my life. I remember it as a low energy year where I did my best to not let it hold me back.
Stay Tuned for the Facebook posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment