Diabetes and Dialysis #9
Tomorrow will be my ninth dialysis session. I have a calendar that I keep the dates that I have had a session circled. So I have a running total. Thinking about rewarding myself at some “strategic” points. Like 25, 50, 100.
Personally, I look for reasons to reward myself. I do tend to set goals lower than most people. I just feel like that lofty goal ends up being a monkey on the back. I can try and try and never reach the reward point. When that happens I have tended, in my life, to give up. As I have gotten older I have noticed that if instead of quiting I reevaluate my goal I can start moving forward again.
Now as for the dialysis sessions themselves I would have to put them int he “not too bad” catagory. Yes, it is very boring to sit in that chair for 4 hours and not be able to go to the bathroom (without some difficulty) or go to the fridge and get a snack. But all in all it is tolerable.
I have also found out, that if I sweet talk my nurse I can usually get some kind of snack or treat from them. Last week it was some kind of protein enriched strawberry ice cream. It was pretty good.
I also do have fun joking with and interacting with the staff that is in the center that day. All of them at my center are fun and enjoying laughing and having a good time. Hey, it also makes the time go by faster for them too.
On another positive note, I had my first in dialysis session last Saturday with no alarms!
Sometimes it seems like these machines just like to alarm to ■■■■ you off. Cough…alarm. Sneeze…alarm. Move…alarm. With this machine alarms (in most cases) the pump shuts off so the blood is no longer being treated. The result is that the clock stops too so that means you have to spend more time in that chair. So you try not to doing anything that might even remotely cause that darn machine to start beeping.
Of course it didn’t hurt that I slept through about 3 hours of the session Saturday. Me an my blankie just curled up and went to sleep. I actually think the blanket that I use is one that used to be on my bed when I was a kid. If I am wrong my wife will correct me. She is good at that. 
So all things considered life just keeps going on.
Oh, and I celabrated session number 10 a little early. The wife and I went to a Mississippi Braves baseball game. We actually saw something I never saw before. Two runs scored on a single wild pitch and the ball was not more that 20 feet away from the catcher the whole time.
Thanks for reading everyone.