The "I'm Running Late All Week. Day One", edition.

iPad shuffled "Portuguese Love", Teena Marie.  This my favorite Teena song.  I'm coming up on my first anniversary of kidney failure. It's also just a little past a year that I quit smoking. That was double edged sword. I felt too bad to smoke.  So there you go. For me at least. When I leave my treatment, I see patients smoking outside before treatment and patients waiting for their ride smoking.  I don't judge.  I can't. I was a smoker. I get it. And we're all adults and know what we're supposed to do. Lol. Like the patients eating a bag of chips in the waiting room before treatment.

I get it.  The renal diet is restrictive.  Add the diabetic diet for many of the patients. :-(  You feel like you are being deprived.  The scenario goes like this:  My kidneys have failed.  Three days every week I have to come to this sterile clinic for 3-5 hours to stay alive. I have get stuck with two needles each visit.  And I must give up foods I like. I have to take meds for things I never even heard of, because dialysis still needs these meds to work.  "Take Me as I Am", Mary J.Blige. It took me a while to warm up to her, but warm up to her. I did. :-)  .  My friends and family can't understand what I'm going through. They tell me to get over it, or even worse they avoid me. I'm eligible for a transplant, but my family doesn't offer to get tested for eligibility. Then avoid me. ...end scenario. So yeah, I'm not going to judge.  I think this is what is leaning me toward being a mentor. 

I was asked what topics as a mentor.  Here are some and why.  What types of kidney failure. There are 42 of us patients on each shift.  We all had different reasons why our kidneys failed. Some of us are quite cranky. I think we as patients need to understand there is going to be a wide range of emotions at any given time.  Sometimes we just need an ear or need to commiserate with someone who is experiencing some of the bizarreness of failed kidneys or dialysis. I'm in!  

Lol. I feel fine, in spite of the maudlin post.  Oh yeah, the staff wears protective lad coats and plastic face coverings, in addition to the face masks and the gloves.  It's like being on a hazmat site and you are the hazardous material. ;-/   Oh well.  

Signing off with "Regulate", Warren G. Jazzy rap.  Yeah!   Have a good evening :-)