The "Spring Break in Las Vegas", edition.

Good Wednesday morning!  It's spring break for the Clark County School District (CCSD). It's the fifth largest school district in the country. It has over 318,000 students and over 18,000 teachers and 1300+ administrators. But wait! There's more!  When I say Clark County, I mean the entirety of Clark County. Imagine our surprise when we saw CCSD school buses in Laughlin!  That's a 90 minute drive from Las Vegas.  We also saw the buses in Boulder City. Clark County is huge. CCSD includes Bunkerville, land o' the Bundys. That's still a little over an hour away from Las Vegas. Clark County is almost 7900 square miles. Anyway. Spring break. 318,000 public school kids and an unknown number of private/parochial/charter school kids all out of school this week.  

So with school out for the week, a lot of activities are planned. Probably most I don't know about because, you know, I don't have a school age kid. But there some things I do know.  Like the 2 giant water parks had their grand opening for the season this week. The parks will be open for the week. After spring break, the water parks will be open only for the weekends until school is out. But it's March!  And water parks are open!  And yeah..the temps did hit the high 80s. So. Yeah. And we were affected because our deep water fitness class is on spring break also to accomodate the kids for the week.  It's fine. Need to prepare for Easter anyway. 

Easter menu is pretty simple. Honeybaked ham, because I can't do ham better, macaroni and cheese, greens, sautéd corn....hoping to find fresh, but will use frozen, cornbread, relish tray...they like those weird olives, stuffed with blue cheese or jalapeños...and I'm getting cupcakes for desert.  Pauline is confined to her apartment, so we'll be bringing dinner to her. Her niece is staying with her for a while, so we're feeding her. And of course Dad will get Carl. Pauline's friend, Herbert, dropped us for another lady in the condo complex, but now he wants back in. I guess Dagmar didn't live up to expectations. And I know I cook way better than her!  Lol lol. But that's fine. Herbert was positive Dearborn is under sharia law. I don't usually try to defend Dearborn for anything, but I had to correct willful ignorance. I told him to quit watching Faux news. Lol lol. I digress. 

Dialysis has been mostly ok. I've had some hits and misses since the angioplasty that concern me. We're still pulling clots. They're smaller, but the procedure stops when clots appear. Such as when the heparin (blood clotting medicine..how ironic) is being administered via the syringe. The syringe can't be plunged because there is a clot somewhere. Heh. Couldn't even get the heparin in there to stop the clot. Or a clot forms during the run, the cycler will holler with a red 30 alarm. And the alarm is annoying!  Lol. That stops every thing. But no red 30 lately  though, when the syringe plunger is pulled back, we're getting air. That's not good.  The air in the lines may be due to a loose connection between the syringe and tubing, or Ive done a bad stick. Or a clot. Also since the angioplasty I'm having trouble finding the right area for the stick. I may need to create a new buttonhole...But we'll see. Anyway. 

Oh yeah. And the leak alarm went off. That was a new annoying sound. Apparently the cartridge had a leak. Yes the cycler complains about every little thing. And that's fine with me. Lol. It protects me!  And the cartridge?  Considering the number of treatments we've done, this is the first time we encountered this. I'd say QA for NxStage is pretty good for the most part. 

I did treatment Tuesday morning because we had cannulation issues Monday. After 3 tries of sticking, we called it a night. Tuesday went fine.  Except afterwards I was tired. Which explains my "I feel,bad about feeling bad" Facebook post. I'd planned to go out and run errands with Brian, but I was spent after getting dressed. It pissed me off. Lol. Brian and Dad assured me it was fine and not worry about it. I love them both beyond reason. Lol. And of course, I'm feeling great today!  

Finally, we took Dad to Zydecos for brunch on Sunday. He'd been haranguing us to take him. He wanted a catfish po'boy. He ordered it, I had the shrimp po'boy and Brian had the muffuletta. Dad devoured his po'boy. He loved it!  Lol. And my shrimp po'boy was so stuffed with shrimp, they tumbled out!!  Next week is Easter and the following week is Dad's birthday. He's looking forward to Fogo de Chao, his favorite restaurant...a Brazilian steak restaurant. He likes the Nonstop presentation of meat!  Lol. 

That's it for today!  It's still Kidney Month. Spread the word. If you or someone you know has diabetes or is hypertensive, they are at high risk for kidney failure. Make sure those kidney numbers are good. I'm pretty sure you don't want to join me in having adventures in dialysis. Heh heh. Have a great Wednesday!