I finally watched Minority Report. It was OK, nothing more. Like Total Recall, another movie involving altered identity and mind control, the story is by Philip K. Dick, who was probably a paranoid schizophrenic. The story revolves around seeing the future via 'precogs'. pre-cognitives who somehow can discern murder. I too now see the future, as well as the past.
My renal function is awful. Last week, and we are now doing labs weekly, creatinine was 5.1, BUN 95. Sodium and potassium are normal, but phosphate, magnesium and calcium are all well off. I certainly have secondary hyperparathyroidism, so I'm eating my bones slowly. And my serum bicarb is 20. The lower limit of normal is 23. By the time you're at 17 you feel like absolute death, the way a person feels after having a GI illness for an entire day. I can't sleep very well, I have cramps. I have no exercise tolerance. A flight of stairs leaves me aching. My mouth tastes terrible now. I'm nauseated much of the day, and there is a whole raft of foods I suddenly can't eat without feeling horrible- smoked meats, red meat except in tiny amounts, spinach, even eggs make me feel sick. Now I eat Corn Chex for breakfast. I'm taking sodium bicarb twice daily to stave off the worst of the acidotic symptoms, but it doesn't work terribly well.
So the future, in the form of the past, is upon me- dialysis. I am not going to be transplanted before I'm so ill I will have to be dialyzed. Sometime in the next couple of weeks I'm likely to get a perm-a-cath, a tunnel catheter that is typically used for short-term dialysis. I don't want a fistula, and by the time it would be mature I will either be close to transplant or ready to discontinue treatment. All sorts of images come to mind, of past and present, both of which condition my feelings about the future.
I've seen this before. I was dialyzed for 6 weeks after nephrectomy, and my father was dialyzed for 7 years. I know what is coming- more cramps, fatigue, dietary limitations, labs and labs and labs, meds galore, doctor visits. I feel like a man who has watched people jump out of a plane, waiting to jump himself. You know what's going to happen, and you know you're afraid and that it will be unpleasant.
I have greater respect and admiration for both my parents right now. My father rarely felt as well as feel even now, and he went to work, smiled, was productive. Balls of steel. And my mother worked, held together a household, and dialyzed her husband. I understand now why my father tried a couple of times to kill himself by eating, why my mother screamed and wept. She had two little kids to deal with on top of all this.
I went for a drive in my Z4 today, top down, and I understood why my father bought himself a flashy car in 1967. He couldn't climb or run or do work in the yard, or play ball, but he could take a drive. Now that's me. I've spent much of the day getting my head wrapped around dialysis, and in doing so revisited my father's car on line, to look at it, to remember, to practice the steps, prepare for what is coming.
I feel so grateful for all the love I've received in my life. I'm grateful for my family and for my friends. I don't feel I've accomplished very much, but no less than many and more than most. All of us end up as dust, no matter what we do or did, and I'm acutely aware of that right now.
Tomorrow I have more labs, and a doctor's visit. There is no recovery here, there is no good news, only a choice of when to start dialysis to make it through to a transplant, if one happens at all. Given how I feel, that's going to be a lot sooner than a lot later.
Ted
My renal function is awful. Last week, and we are now doing labs weekly, creatinine was 5.1, BUN 95. Sodium and potassium are normal, but phosphate, magnesium and calcium are all well off. I certainly have secondary hyperparathyroidism, so I'm eating my bones slowly. And my serum bicarb is 20. The lower limit of normal is 23. By the time you're at 17 you feel like absolute death, the way a person feels after having a GI illness for an entire day. I can't sleep very well, I have cramps. I have no exercise tolerance. A flight of stairs leaves me aching. My mouth tastes terrible now. I'm nauseated much of the day, and there is a whole raft of foods I suddenly can't eat without feeling horrible- smoked meats, red meat except in tiny amounts, spinach, even eggs make me feel sick. Now I eat Corn Chex for breakfast. I'm taking sodium bicarb twice daily to stave off the worst of the acidotic symptoms, but it doesn't work terribly well.
So the future, in the form of the past, is upon me- dialysis. I am not going to be transplanted before I'm so ill I will have to be dialyzed. Sometime in the next couple of weeks I'm likely to get a perm-a-cath, a tunnel catheter that is typically used for short-term dialysis. I don't want a fistula, and by the time it would be mature I will either be close to transplant or ready to discontinue treatment. All sorts of images come to mind, of past and present, both of which condition my feelings about the future.
I've seen this before. I was dialyzed for 6 weeks after nephrectomy, and my father was dialyzed for 7 years. I know what is coming- more cramps, fatigue, dietary limitations, labs and labs and labs, meds galore, doctor visits. I feel like a man who has watched people jump out of a plane, waiting to jump himself. You know what's going to happen, and you know you're afraid and that it will be unpleasant.
I have greater respect and admiration for both my parents right now. My father rarely felt as well as feel even now, and he went to work, smiled, was productive. Balls of steel. And my mother worked, held together a household, and dialyzed her husband. I understand now why my father tried a couple of times to kill himself by eating, why my mother screamed and wept. She had two little kids to deal with on top of all this.
I went for a drive in my Z4 today, top down, and I understood why my father bought himself a flashy car in 1967. He couldn't climb or run or do work in the yard, or play ball, but he could take a drive. Now that's me. I've spent much of the day getting my head wrapped around dialysis, and in doing so revisited my father's car on line, to look at it, to remember, to practice the steps, prepare for what is coming.
I feel so grateful for all the love I've received in my life. I'm grateful for my family and for my friends. I don't feel I've accomplished very much, but no less than many and more than most. All of us end up as dust, no matter what we do or did, and I'm acutely aware of that right now.
Tomorrow I have more labs, and a doctor's visit. There is no recovery here, there is no good news, only a choice of when to start dialysis to make it through to a transplant, if one happens at all. Given how I feel, that's going to be a lot sooner than a lot later.
Ted
It is scary standing in line, waiting to jump out of a plane, knowing that you WILL fall. Thankfully you know the outcome. You fall, pull the parachute, and safely land back on the ground. The jump, the fall, and the heights are all scary, but at the end of it all is solid ground and the only way to get there is to jump.
ReplyDeleteCertainly doesn't make the jump easier, but hopefully you will be on solid ground shortly. We all love and support you in this!
My late father-in-law was a paratrooper in WW2. HE jumped on St. Marie-Eglise on June 6, 1944 and did, from time-to-time, comment on his wartime experience of jumping out of airplanes. His comment to you would be: "Yes, but instead of a whole bunch of f..king Germans waiting for you on the ground trying f..king KILL you, you have a loving family and many friends waiting to share the rest of their lives with you for the rest of your long life." We are not our parents; we have our own lives and experiences that form us and inform how we, in our time, become parents to our own children. Remember your father and mother but BE you: their tears are not yours. I have said this to you before dear friend: be well, be safe, NEVER surrender!
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