The "Valentine's Day" edition.

Good Monday morning. I heard Michael Henderson "Valentine Love" yesterday. Or was it Norman Connors?  Anyway I hadn't  heard it for a while. Good thing I was alone in the car. ;-)  Cranked up the volume and sang my heart out!!!  Oh yeah. I was driving alone yesterday. And not was I only alone, I was way across town!  Yeah. I'm feeling better.  For the most part.  Sometimes riding in the car in the sun affects me. Where did this come from. Geez. It's got to always be something. My blood pressure is still low, but I feel fine. Eh 

Brian surprised me with a bouquet of flowers on Friday. Ok. Brian is not a traditional romantic type of guy. And that's fine. Romance doesn't fit him him. No poetry recitings there. Lol. In his defense, I'd probably chuckle at romance.  But here's the thing. He has his own brand of romance. Like making the coffee every morning. And bringing me a cup.  Or fixing dinner for Dad when I was ill. Or helping me step off a curb that's a little too high. Or making sure I have my Spicy V8. Or being my sous chef.  His knife skills are amazing!  He sets up my dialysis machine and orders equipment.  I could go on, but I think you get what I mean.  He is my Valentine's Day love. And Valentine's Day is everyday. Ok. Enough. You know I'm crazy about him. I'll stop.  

We went to Hush Puppies restaurant Saturday evening for dinner to celebrate Valentine's Day. Catfish and shrimp aplenty!  I had a meeting on Sunday and planned to do treatment Sunday night. I know. Home hemo is flexible. Why didn't I just skip Sunday. Well. We got a late start on the machine prep on Friday and we missed treatment on Friday. That screwed up the schedule. We'd just got back on schedule after fiddling with it last week. Anyway. I missed Friday night so we did treatment Saturday morning. And I didn't want to skip any more days. It's fine. 

Finally the members of the Facebook group Dialysis Discussions Uncensored (DDU) received the news that we didn't want to hear. The founder of the group died yesterday. I mentioned in my last entry that his doctors gave him 6 months. His body just broke down. Organs failing in succession. In the end it was all about pain management. His mother was his primary caregiver. She kept the DDU community updated on all the good, the bad and ugly. We went on the journey with the young man and his mom. It was heartbreaking. And of course we got the news of his passing hours after being informed of the death of another member of the community. I shed tears when I read of the young man's  death, even though I knew it was coming. I feel for his mom. When I say caregiver, she performed dialysis, drew blood knew what the numbers meant, administered the feeding tube protocol, changed wound dressings.  His bowel had fissures, so she was cleaning waste and attending to those areas. 

I don't know where my ESRD will lead me. I know the process of dialysis ravages my body. It's killing my heart.  I walk a fine balance of drugs to keep my phosphorus, potassium and calcium levels normal. Trying to artificially do what what kidneys do. To much potassium and there goes my heart. Ah well. All I can do is follow what I can. I am doing fine for now and enjoying myself. I had the best red wine yesterday, Stella Rosa. I normally don't like red wine. But this?  Mmmmmmm. :-)  

Photo of yesterday's sunrise. This morning's sunrise was similar.