So, I got an anonymous comment on the journal the other day, I went to check out the link and got a 404 page.

In answer to the question: I'm hanging out in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. Good old Thunder Bay. Yes, it was our local college that had the plane stolen from it. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. . . .

So, the unit got a couple of new machines. They are big and pretty and have shiny blue parts! (SHINY!) And, lucky me, seem to be a test pilot for the nurse training on them. Yay?

Anywho, I have now clotted the new machine twice in about 2 weeks.

Hi anemia, no I haven't missed you. . . .

So, now they're talk of screwing with my heparin dosage and there was talk of trying cath-flo (sp?) tonight, but it never happened.

Why yes, I do have a niggling fear that I will be having a rather long winded argument/stalemate with Super Doc over the future of My Precious at some point.

yay. . .

In other news, STARGATE YAY!!! Atlantis, SG-1, it doesn't matter, it makes EVERYTHING better now. BEHOLD THE NEW CARTER ICON! Woot!

Apparently, with the way things are going, I could have a kidney within the next year or two.

I'm not exactly sure what to make of this.

So, my arm is now 3 different shades of purple and the back of my hand has a little bit of colour too. Wow, this takes me back, and not exactly in a good way. . . I made the mistake of showing Little Miss (I've talked about her before, right?) my arm. The rest of the day was filled with "Boo boo?" and pointing until I showed it to her and she could assure herself that it was still there. Ah, to be nearly 2 again.

*sigh* Telehealth conference at 3:40pm today, not really looking forward to that either Though signs are pointing towards the fact that my mother might be coming along too, which means that I only kinda sorta have to pay attention. Translation: 75% of my attention will be wandering towards Atlantis while 25% keeps an eye on what's going on so I don't look like a total idiot.

Also, after being asked to write a M*A*S*H story, focusing on Hawkeye, I finally remembered a story I've been meaning to tell for ages, but kept forgetting.

My unit? HAS IT'S VERY OWN HAWKEYE! I can't make this up. One of the other Super Docs TOTALLY has the personality of Hawkeye. Though he does look a little more like Trapper from the movie. Needless to say that once I realized that, I giggle a little every time he comes into the unit to do with thing.

It's even worse when he tromps in in Hiking boots, cargo pants and has a scruffy beard.

Be still my little fandom heart!

Also, because I can? This cold? IS TOTALLY NOT A COLD! IT IS THE SWINE FLU! Or North American Flu or Mexican flu, whatever we're calling it now. I also just finished reading an article that says I should get a Whooping Cough booster now. *sigh*

Dear Medical profession,
Could you please just let me know if I need to get a booster for ALL my shots? Thanks.
Some love,
Me.

Blood work was an adventure. It took 4 sticks and they blew the vein twice. The x-ray took an hour and then I had to sit around for ANOTHER 90 minutes because the 'geniuses' at the check in desk marked my ECG as an inpatient procedure to be done during dialysis tonight, but didn't tell me that.

Fortunately, the lovely girl who took my blood asked around the back and I wound up having it done. So, all said? The whole thing took 3.5 hours to finish. Christ.

So, not my right arm is 3 different shades of purple and sore, the back of my hand is sore and a little swollen and I literally wasted all day in the hospital.

I also found it THRILLING when the 75+ year old guy was trying to convince me that the hospital was giant waste of money, that the people who built it were morons because they are now having to fix some minor issues on the outside of the building. Fortunately, he shut up and left me alone once I buried my nose in my book. I also got stuck sitting next to some chick who exclaimed "Oh for fucks sake!" every time someone got called a head of her interspersed with "This is ridiculous!" and her yelling into her cell phone.

On the plus side: OMG DONE FOR ANOTHER YEAR!!
Down side: Must sit through useless teleconference on Thursday.

Too lazy to change my icon, so, points to those who can name the new fandom!

So, I am giving up my precious, precious sleep in time tomorrow morning to have the following conversation with a tech in the lab.

"Just us the big blue vein running down my right forearm."
*Tech gives speech about not getting good blood from a vein like that.*
"Yeah, but I have bad veins from heavy steroid use. Trust me, just butterfly the vein."
"Oh it'll be fine." *Proceeds to dig around in elbow for several minutes, makes a comment about me being a tough stick, having skittish veins*
*HUGE FUCKING EYE ROLL!!*

And after the tech proceeds to dig around in my elbow 3 more times, resulting in pain, possible bruising, frustration, guess what she'll do?

SHE'LL BUTTERFLY THE BIG BLUE VEIN RUNNING DOWN MY FOREARM! AND PROCEED TO TELL ME WHAT AN EASY STICK IT WAS!

Fuck. I'm not new to this people, just listen to me.

Or get some nurse down there to operate the catheter. Hell I'll operate the catheter if it will make you feel better. All I need is 3 empty syringes, some heparin and some saline and we're good to go!

*head shake* Morons. Why can't they just listen to me the first time? It would make ALL of our lives just That. Much. Easier.

So, yeah. Glucose Tolerance testing tomorrow. Plus, like, 3 other pages of blood work including HIV, West Nile and some other slightly scary things. Then ANOTHER ECG. and ANOTHER chest x-ray. Bloody hell. We get an ECG every 6 months in the unit. Plus one every time I do a stress test. And now this. That's like, 3 a year. WTF? And, typically, the easiest test only happens once a year. Though, the chest x-ray might yield something fun this time, considering the fact that I'm hacking up some VERY nasty tasting things these days. (current theory: SWINE FLU! Might as well join in the pandemic panic while it's still cool.)

Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated.

I think.

I know I should update more, but honestly? NOTHING HAPPENS! Well, that's not true. I just think nothing has happened until I sit down to update and then a FLOOD of stuff has apparently happened. My machine has been taking off an extra .3 kilos for a couple of weeks now, so that has been making life interesting.

I also have a new obsession: Stargate: Atlantis! YAY! Well, seasons 1-3 of Atlantis. I also choose to ignore the fact that they killed Carson WITH AN EXPLODING TUMOR! Or that they jerked Torri Higginson around until she refused to come back.

Bastards.

And this relates to dialysis how?

Should know by now that I'm getting to that. So, I'm pretty sure I complained that the laptop was dying a slow death. Well, I saved up ALL my pennies and SPLURGED!! on a shiny new 15 inch Macbook Pro. And kids, THIS is what true love is. This also means that I can now, once again, spend a blissful 4 hours a session watching what I want to watch.

Thank. God. City TV blows.

Have a telehealth conference on Friday that I still haven't gotten blood work or chest x-ray done for. I guess that's Tuesday mornings adventure. I had every intention of going last Friday, but I learned something: fasting for 8-12 hours AFTER a dialysis treatment is possible the stupidest idea I have had since. . . climbing Mount McKay at 11pm with dying flashlights. You kids can look that up on line if you really want to. It's there, trust me. Headachey and sick to my stomach and generally feeling so weak, shaky and sick that I had to eat something. That was unfortunate.

I also wound up at the family Dr. last week and I can announce the following: I got a booster shot of measles, mumps and Rubella (boo!), I'm not depressed, just chronically bored and a sleep specialist would crap themselves with joy to get a hold of me.

My sleep patterns are officially horrendous and I was, once again (sigh) given all the same, it doesn't work advice. I tried to explain that I had done all that, several times over and it hadn't worked.

I'm pretty sure what I really need to have happen is to have a good week or two where I take something to make me sleep, to retrain my body. Because, when I do go to sleep at a normal hour, I sleep 2-4 hours and them I'm up until some ungodly hour in the morning. where I proceed to fall asleep for another 4-6 hours and wake up at an ungodly time in the middle of the day.

I've also started to wake up at 6am, no matter what time I go to bed. That one really sucks. I read once that the body it's self doesn't get tired, the mind does. Maybe I need to go back to school and force my brain to work? Not that I'm going to, but still, food for thought. . . .

In 'it makes ya think' news, a renal patient died last week. That's 3 or 4 since I started. So, one a year. It makes me wonder how many people Quiet Guy, who has been int eh until for at least 15 years, has seen die. (Ok, so I didn't actually SEE him die, I just read his obit in the paper. But, you know. . . ) It doesn't really make me feel any more vulnerable, it just gives me something else to wonder about. Because I obviously don't have enough to keep my mind occupied.

I'm also thinking bout cleaning up the tags, but, damn that's a lot of work.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand I hot linked. Oh well, if it really starts to chew up bandwith, I'll change it.

Anywho, the above is a lovely little sculpture from an event entitled Dialysis Demolition Day and it is being used to promote World Kidney Day.

Go team James Warham is all I can really say about that.

My complaint of the day is such: My unit gives us lucky schmucks with perm caths a little cloth baggy to tie around the ends. While they are ALWAYS ugly as hell, they do the job without taping the thing to my chest, which is always a plus. Well, there is now a rowing number of nurses that don't loosen the ties enough when removing them, so that they get caught on the clamps. Most Super Nurses are smart enough to stop and loosen the ties again before trying to remove the bag again.

Notice how I said most?

Yeah, I had a yanker tonight. And after she made me jump in pain for hte second time, I all but smacked her hands away to take the bag off myself.

Her reply?

"Oh, was I pulling?"

0.o

HOW COULD YOU NOT NOTICE!?!?!?!? I mean, seriously! SERIOUSLY!!
*headshake* I'm out of words.

(EEEEEEEEEE! New M*A*S*H/Kidney related icon!)

DUDE! I love how many closet M*A*S*H fans I've found already. I'm up to like, 6. You guys are hilarious!

Yesterday was my 500th!!! consecutive dialysis treatment.
And I got NO CAKE!
How rude :|

Nothing much else to report. The "new system" at dialysis is, um, working? I don't know. I'm still on consistently late, but at least I'm usually on by 5:15 instead of 5:45 every session, so win? I'm not really sure how to call this one.

I dropped my dry weight back to 80kilos, so I'm happy about that. Ideally, I'd love to get back down to 75.5, but I don't think that'll happen.

Have also taken to playing cards at Dialysis. I play ENDLESS games of Russian Solitaire, Aces Up and Canfield. I get ridiculously giddy when I get one of the large rolly tables. How sad :(

And, as far as fanish obsessions go, Annie has given way to M*A*S*H. Hawkeye/Houlihan, TOTALLY HAPPENS!! At least according to AfterM*A*S*H. Apparently she moves up to Crab Apple Cove and they get married. But, after the kiss in Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, did we really think they WEREN'T going to get together?

DUDE! CARTER'S ON DIALYSIS!!!!!

And that look on his face? I TOTALLY GET IT! And I bet most of you do too.

Random observances:
-Those machine? Half our unit has those. The other half has ones that look WAY cooler because of all the tubing that is on the out side.
-I'm unimpressed by the pretend fistulas. Do they ever run right down the middle of your forearm?
-Little TVs = SUXXOR!
-I disapprove of the fact that NONE of the patients were laying down, they were all sitting up.
-Also, dark much?

I just read a post that said ( ER spoiler ) was on dialysis. Interesting.

I'll watch it tomorrow when it's posted online and let you kids know.

I have discovered Munny's.

What?

Munnys. http://www.kidrobot.com/2008/munny/?p=home

And, after buzzing through esty and seeing that people are actually selling their customized dolls, a thought occurred to me.

I like to doodle on things with Sharpies.

What do you thin the chances would be of me doing up a few of these and you fine people purchasing them with the money going to The Canadian Kidney Foundation? (Minus $15 from each doll to cover costs of said doll, shipping them to Can and the supplies to do said doodling.) Say, for about $30? With the option of requesting Munny base colour and colour(s) of doodle pens?

I settled on $30 because then $15 goes to CFC. I am willing to negotiate prices.

Thoughts?

So, I still haven't gone back in to get that x-ray done or to have the blood work done. Honestly? I value my sleep too much and there is no way in hell that I am waiting for the bus in -40C weather. It's just never going to happen. Ever.

Well, maybe if my life depended on it. . . but even then I might have to think about it first.

In other news, the unit has started a new system in an attempt to smooth out operations. They've staggered start times slightly and I'm not really sure if it's working yet since my first experience of this new system was on Tuesday. Eh, I'll keep you guys posted. On the down side, since we're now officially in a recession, the hospital has decided that the renal department is over budget so in an effort to reduce costs, they've taken the monumentally intelligent step of cutting nurses.

Why yes, that last sentence was so sarcastic that it sounded serious.

So, instead of 3-5 nurses in each pod (there are 4 pods in my unit) there are now 5 nurses for every 2 pods.

That's right, 5 nurses on either side of the floor. I told my fave Super Nurse to let me know when she wants the angry letter writing to begin, because I am SO THERE!

I don't know if I've posted about this before or not, but I'm working part time, was previously full time, as a nanny to my cousin. She's 19 months and I refer to her as Little Miss on the internet. Anywho, I tend to not wear low cut shirts, but recently I've been branching out a little. As a result, the dressing over My Precious is visible.

Well, Little Miss does not think that this is acceptable and she would very much like for me to either take it off or let her poke it to her hearts content. Once she sees it, she has a hard time accepting the fact that it's my 'boo boo' and it's ok that it's there. Eventually she grudgingly accepts these facts and moves on, but every time we have this conversation, I can't help but stop and realize that chances are very good she will never know me as someone who WASN'T on dialysis until she is even old enough to understand what exactly being on dialysis means.

Stupid hospital. . .

So, I showed up for the ultrasounds and chest xray today. Ultrasounds went smoothly, tech was pretty to look at, but when I went back up to the front to see about the xray, I'm informed that she doesn't have a requisition for it, so I can't have it.

I tell her that I never get a requisition for any of these tests, that I'm just handed a piece of paper that tells me when and where to be. She maintains that she can't let me have the chest xray, but informs me of the times that xray is open for out patient xrays.

So, now I have to wait until Tuesday to go and bitch at the renal staff who will then bitch to Super Doc who will then take his sweet time in getting me another appointment. Either that or I expect someone to start calling me on Monday wanting to know why I missed my xray time.

What a joke.

Stress Echo went fine, took less time than I expected it to since this Cardiologist wasn't interested in making me hit the target heart rate of 190. I did, however, hit 173 in about 7 minutes. My blood pressure never went above145/80, so, go team me!

I also think that said cardiologist was only int he room for decoration. Ok, so I know that's not true, but he barely said anything to me before another Dr. walked in and after they had finished talking Official Hospital Business, they moved on to the favourite topic of the week (month? year?) OBAMA! (Can I get a wut wut?)

*sigh* I <3 Obama. And hi kids are adorable. Now, let's just hope he lives up to all they hype. I must say though, that the suspension of military trials at Gitmo is a good start. But enough of this, we're not here to talk politics. . . well,maybe one more.

Dear Harper,
Please, please, PLEASE fuck up the budget again. I would really love to see either the coalition take over or see you forced into the vote of non confidence you avoided so skillfully by closing down parliament. Not even the Gov. General can save you now moron.
No love at all, ever,
Me.

I think Friday morning will be devoted to blood work with the possibility of milking a free lunch at the Hoito (Mmmmm . . . . Hoito . . . .) out of my mother and Sunday is the last of the test. Thank. God. I have had enough ultra sound gel on me to last a life time, thank you very much.

And, to sum up TRANSPLANT WORK UP EXTRAVAGANZA WEEK! I present you with this nugget I coined today: "Yep, every year now I get a free transplant work up for my birthday." Followed by a very sarcastic hurrah. . . .

Somehow, capitalizing it with an exclamation mark or two makes it look more exciting than it already is.

Anyway, this is my 3rd go around at all these 'fun' tests and I must say, I hate them all a little more every time.

The list of blood work I have to get seems to get longer and my least favourite test is the 2 hour fasting glucose test. For those not in the know, this is how it works.

-Fast for 12 hours
-They hand you a container of something to drink (reports vary as to what it is. Mine usually tastes like flat McDonalds Orange drink. ugh.) It's packed with sugar and generally tastes horrible.
-They will then proceed to jam a needle into your arm every 30 minutes for the next 2 hour to see how you process the sugar.

This tests is my most hated because the drink usually makes me feel sick, and as soon as they tell me 'Well, don't throw up or we'll have to start all over again.' it just makes me want to o and throw up more. The whole forbiden fruit complex kicks in I suppose.
Because the left arm has the Big, Ugly Useless in it, they can't draw blood from it and apparently everyone working in the lab is only a tech. Because they won't use The Precious because only nurses can use The Precious. Last time I had this done, instead of taking my advice and butterflying the GORGEOUS, HUGE, IMPOSSIBLE TO MISS vein that runs right down the middle of my forearm, the nurse dug around in my elbow and then proceeded to jam the needle into the EXACT SAME HOLE until finally the vein took a hint, disappeared and wouldn't come back, forcing her to butterfly me. And this was after she had used that same hole to draw 6 or 7 vials of blood for all the other tests. Oy.

The rest of the fun and games involves me wandering around in a hospital gown while ultrasound gel is plastered onto various parts of my body and then an x-ray, ECG and Stress echo thrown in for kicks.

Here's a fun little story from my last stress echo.

After they rough you up with BRILLO PADS!! they then proceed to swab some alcohol wipes over these spots before they paste on the electrodes. Why yes, I do start having an allergic reaction to the adhesive on the pads within about 5 minutes, thanks for asking *eye roll*

They then made me sit around long enough to read a chapter and a half of Jane Eyre before they made me hop up on the tread mill. So, time on the tread mill drags on and as my heart rate approaches 185!!! the doctor is disappointed that I can go another few minutes longer.

What a tool.

Also, on my abdominal ultrasound, my kidneys don't even have the decency to look damaged, the little bastards. They look perfect. I even had an ultrasound tech tell me that if she didn't know I was in renal failure, she never would have been able to guess from the ultra sound. What a rip.

Tuesday is an echo cardiogram and the tech is ALWAYS a tool. Either a condescending one or one who doesn't say a single word during the test. I'm not sure which is worse. Wednesday I get to run the stress echo and on the 25th, yes a Sunday, at 9am, I get to do all the other tests.

I do, however, get to pick the morning to be treated like a pin cushion, so, small victory I suppose?

I turn 25 on the 26th.

While I don't have to celebrate at dialysis this year, I foresee nothing else terribly exciting happening that day.

My chronic inability to keep friends in RL has cropped up again. My inability to be completely spontaneous because of dialysis is partially to blame, I suppose, but other than that, I have no reasons why this keeps happening.

If one more person tells me I should hit the bar by myself, I will slap them silly. TROLLING THE BAR WILL NOT FIND ME ANY FRIENDS! I CAN'T EVEN SECURE A MAKE OUT PARTNER FOR THE NIGHT AT A BAR!

How sad is that? Not even throwing my fluid balance horribly out of balance can get me to first base and at this point, I think I might even take a slobbering drunk if it got me some action.

Being chronically ill as an adult sucks. The kids get all the fun shit. Make a Wish and all that, and what do adults get? A check from the gov every month so we can scrap by a little longer. Well, damnit, I want a Make a Wish so I can forget that my life depends on a machine for a while.

I haven't been very witty lately. I don't know why because I am an absolute HOOT while actually at dialysis.

The getting on the machine on time thing seems to have been worked out for the most part. About once a week I can expect to get on at about 5:20 or later, which I can live with. The good super nurses seem to have cycled back in and Super Doc is maintaining a low to non-existent Fail Level, which is something we all like.

It is also most definitely winter here. The schools had their first snow day on Tuesday, the luck schmucks. I, on the other hand, had to bundle up in skipants as well as my hat, mitts and coat to slog through a foot + of snow to catch my ride to work. No justice I tell ya, none at all.

Did I complain about the back muscle thing here? I don't remember. Anyways, the blinding muscle pain that happened when I had a cold a while back made a comeback for a couple of days. And, in typical style, it went away as suddenly as it had appeared after about three days.

Little Miss continues to be hilarious, yet very taxing all at the same time. There's a reason I call her My Little Dictator on the long days. We've had a close encounter with Santa and aren't exactly sure what we think of snow. Ah the life of an 18 month old.

As I bragged about earlier, in the month (a week ago or so?) the 15th was my 3 year anniversary. Some stats for you fine people:

Sessions: 470 (As of Tuesday)
(The rest of this is dependent on my math being right.)
Hours spent on machine: 1873.5
Days: 78.06

Gross. I have spent nearly a whole year of my life hooked up to that machine. Nutty.

Schedule will go all wacky starting the 22nd. For two weeks I will go Monday, Wednesday Saturday so that I don't end up in the unit on Christmas Day or New Years Day. As an added twist this year, there are enough new/don't really speak English people in the unit that they gave us all a schedule with the days we need to show up x'ed out. I giggled.

And then they handed out the free gift from the Canadian Kidney Foundation. Last year was some kind of nasty trail mix and something else. This year? A calendar. I can't tell if that's an improvement or not.

Elisabeth Hassleback on kidney donation:
"That is the ultimate re-gift!!"

Wow. The woman actually said something that didn't make me want to punch her. In fact, she made me giggle.

In other news, monday is my 3rd anniversary.

Those stupid TV remotes at the hospital are making me break out on the right side of my face. I try to remember to keep the blanket between my face and the remote, but it gets too hot at times.

Stupid lap top.

Stupid people who stole the portable DVD players! GRRRRRRRR! They're the ones that REALLY piss me the hell off. All of this could have been avoided if people (Re: the natives, because everyone knows it was them) would either A) show some respect, b) Buy their own or c) GROW THE FUCK UP AND SHOW SOME RESPECT!

That? THAT IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!!!!

In other news, I can now be a menace on the road for another 5 years. I can also now sit back and watch people bitch about the new driving laws in Ontario as well as laugh at the confusion when people start contradicting each other on what said laws are.