This past Wednesday was my first dialysis treatment and surprisingly it was all I expected. A. The got the needles in my arm and hooked me up to the machinery, it was uncomfortable but not terribly painful. I was supposed to run for about 3 hours but at 1 1/2 hours something went haywire and the dialysis stopped working. They decided to remove the needles and start over. The new techs couldn’t insert the needles into my fistula and poked and jabbed at my arm for about 1 1/2 hours. It was excruciating. Finally, they decided I should go to the emergency room. When I asked what they would do at the emergency room, the nurse told me they would fix my fistula because it was “bad”. Now even I am smart enough to know they couldn’t fix my fistula, when the dialysis center wanted was for them to insert a catheter into my neck to proceed with the dialysis, When they finally reached my doctor she said do not go to the emergency room and that she would talk to the vascular surgeon and call me in the morning. It was determined that i would go back on Friday for another try. Needless to say i was retry worked up about this. My arm was so sore and I felt physically and emotionally drained. I did go back on Friday and it was decided (my doctors was there) that my fistula was too deep and it would need another surgery to repair. I’m tentatively scheduled for that surgery on Wednesday (waiting to hear Monday for sure) and then it was take 2 - 3 weeks for it to heal enough to be used, hopefully my kidneys can hold out for those 3 - 4 weeks, so that I do not have to have a catheter placed.
Some days it feels as though nothing goes right. I had the fistula put in almost a year ago to be ready for this and now that I’m ready, it appears my body is not.
When I pulled up the old blog posts I was shocked to find that I gave up blogging in December of 2017. I really enjoyed blogging and my interactions with all of you and THEN, it happened. I made what I though was a joke on another blog post and this person went off on me as though I had burned down his house, stolen his truck and shot his dog. I was stunned and in my usual stubborn manner simply decided that I wouldn’t back down. When my blogging friends (all but one I might add, who wasn’t even a blogger but who did follow my blog and comment on most of my posts) remained silent waiting to see which way the wind blew or how it all shook out or whatever, I really got my feelings hurt.
I want to be sure to draw your attention to the fact that i said; “I got my feelings hurt”. Nobody did that to me, I let it happen. I do take full responsibility for ALL of my actions with regards to this incident, AND after a time many of my blogging friends did come to my defense, but for me the damage was done. It just wasn’t fun anymore, so I walked. That’s what I do. Life, quite literally is too short (trust me on this one) to fuss and fight over silly things.
ANYWHO... here we are over three years later, the world has gone completely mad and I find that I have some things that I want to say. Of course, it will also involve music, not surprised are you!
For this first post I’m going to cheat and just copy and paste a post I made earlier today. It will bring you up to date on what’s been going on in my life and give you some idea of where I’m heading on down the road. I don’t know how regular my posting will be, but I do know I will have time on my hands (about twelve extra hours per week) so hopefully I will be around at least weekly, maybe more. I don’t know if any of you will find me, but I still need to get some of these thoughts out into the universe.
So...here you go. My first post in over three years.
On Sunday a friend of mine posted that today is National Cancer Survivors Day. People were commenting who had survived cancer and for how long. I posted that I was a cancer survivor of 19 years. That shocked me, I remember when I was first diagnosed and I had to face my own mortality.
Cancer treatment was hell, but here I am nineteen years later knowing for a fact that i have had an extraordinary life. NOW, i face the next phase of survival. Today I begin my journey with dialysis. Cancer and the treatment has in part wrecked my kidneys and they can no longer support my life, so i must depend on machinery for that.
I have resisted this for a few years now and my doctors have been both disgusted and amazed that I have made it this long, but alas, I’m at the point where it is necessary or I will die. I thought I was ready to die. I thought I didn’t want to live dependent upon machinery, but I’ve seen that my family is not ready to let me go, or maybe that is a convenient excuse for my not really being ready to go, either way TODAY I begin a new journey. It starts with blood tests, then they will map my fistula (the site used for dialysis) and the dialysis should begin either on Friday or Monday.
It’s a hard thing to tell your family and friends and maybe this is the cowards way of doing it, but now you all know. I’m not looking for sympathy (well, maybe a little empathy). I will continue to live an extraordinary life up until the moment I take my last breath. I do not want to spend the last few hours, days, weeks, months, or years of my life dying, but living.
If you feel the need to eulogize me in your mind, please try to keep it to yourself; for my sake and that of my family. If you want to pray for me, I will always appreciate that, but most importantly i want you to know that i have tried to love people (not always successfully), for that is the answer to a truly extraordinary life - deep, genuine, unconditional love. That same love that my Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ have expressed for me.
Now, lets get on with the business of living and living extraordinarily!
