The dishwasher is splashing through its cycle, the old git’s gone to bed, the dawters in the attic and Sid has just jumped through the cat flap. I’ve had another gruelling day of dialysis.
I woke at 4.00, couldn’t sleep and decided on a papaya. Little did I know that the humble papaya is not a paw paw but a papaya, it exists as a bundle of minerals and electrolytes. with a load of potassium. Weedy kidneys do not like potassium. weedy kidneys do not like a lot of things from potatoes to bananas from coffee to chocolate. having weak kidneys spells a life of lack. Grrr.
Phosphates in quantity make you itch. Like an orangutang. Really insane itching. I had to buy calamine lotion. My skin looks like an elephants arse.
Being a kidney deficient the last thing we need is an overload of potassium and phosphates. Fucks the heart. I had no idea that three hours later I could barely focus, stand up or drive. At 7.00a.m.I telephoned the offspring who sprung out of bed and drove me to my cleansing. Nothing on the road, being a Bank Holiday Monday. She helped me into the unit. I slid onto the bed and watched as she left me alone with my terror.
My pulse was so low they threatened A&E, my blood pressure all over the place. My eye sight buggered and my equilibrium shot.
Bev plugged me up to the dialysis machine. I lay like an old rag doll, my head limp and my hands as cold as ice. Within the hour I had recovered, but only then was it clear that my body is having problems with the water removal.
I am 5ft small, and so much fluid has been removed frown my body that Kirsty, another nurse, said
‘Oh! We’re drying you up’
I am on a restricted liquid diet so hydration is a thing of the past.
The pipes were hooked up by 9.00. By 10.00. 2 litres were being extracted from my wizened body.
By 11.00 my legs started jumping. By 12.00 I couldn’t bare the discomfort. So I asked to be unhooked.
The nurses can’t do anything without the sayso of the Kidney consultant, who is on holiday because its Easter.
I am now fighting to have less water taken out of my body, I am dreading Wednesday when my legs will start jumping all over again and I will have to tell yet another nurse that I only want 1.4 litres – a opposed to 3 – sucked out of me.
It’s an interesting phenomenon they ask you about your treatment and then you have to give them the quantities. How much can you stand to have taken off? They ask. Not four hours worth I whinge. They then tell me that they can’t make that decision because the consultant is away on her Easter vacation.
By 12.45 I was rebalanced but sucked dry.
Home to a chilly garden and a bowl of peas and cauliflower cooked by my cheffy kid, two vegetables that don’t compropmise me.
I watched telly and cleaned the draining board and found my passport, which I need for identification. Tomorrow I have have an eye test for the DVLA, which if I fail means I cant drive. So I’m off to bed to try and get proper sleep.
I haven’t come to terms with my new lifes time table yet. I haven’t fully accepted that I am a kidney deficient old woman with lousy eyesight and an ‘oosbind whose memory is as bad as my kidneys. Old age is brutal. Please stay healthy so you can face your dwindling years with aplomb.
But I am alive and have started meditating with Belle Ruth Napersteck and her CD for dialysis. My elephant ear bulbs have arrived and I’m waiting for my Himalayan poppies, a delicious blue. The magnolia petals have been blown off the tree but the birds are singing louder than ever.
Yesterday we had an Easter lunch with four friends which included potassium loaded potatoes, potassium loaded leeks and potassium loaded parsnips. I took my own cooked cauliflower. I cried on the way home for what is lamb with out roasted spuds?
They all had a fancy pudding while I looked on with the eyes of the loneliness of a long distance runner bean, which I, thankfully, can eat in bucket loads.
Today the Pope died, 88 years of red papal shoes and incense. I wonder who is next? A peacemonger I hope.