Sitting on your Butt for 8 hours straight is hard work!

At around 9:30am today, I went to the hairdresser to get my hair done. Like always, getting braids in my hair is usually an all day affair. Today was no different. As I mentioned, I got there at 9:30am and got out of that chair at around 5:15pm! And that’s with NO major breaks, as in, no breaks that lasted longer than 4-5 minutes. Wow! But I am very pleased with my hair. But when it’s time to take these braids out…ya that’s gonna be a big production in and of itself.

My ankles are still sore today. Strangely, my blood results aren’t back yet. My nurse Rose thinks that the lab is probably back-logged due to Easter. But sheesh, tomorrow will make it 7 business days. How long is a Lupus test supposed to take? In the meantime, I’ve been using 1 codeine pill a day to keep the pain at bay (and no, people, I’m not addicted to codeine so save the intervention! LoL)

My stomach still feels funny. Some days it’s fine, and other times it’s not. Some days it’ll be ok for some of the day, and not for other parts of the day. This just isn’t normal….something’s gotta be up.

Speaking of which, the results of my Gastric Emptying time test came back. Doctors were concerned that perhaps my stomach was digesting food too slowly. They say that sometimes people on dialysis have a “lazy gut”. Well, lo and behold, my body has to throw a wrench into what the doctors thought they already knew but just wanted to do a test to confirm. Not only do I not have a “lazy gut”, but I have an….hmm….I guess you can say…an athletic one? My gut actually digests food faster than your average bear. When Dr. Chan told me this, I was like..”umm…ok….now what?” He told me that he would speak to a gastroenterolgist and get their opinion of the test results and see what they have to say. So, more waiting I guess.

My last dialysis training day will be this coming Monday. I wanted Friday (tomorrow) to be the last day that I have to go there but that’s not going to happen. In order for me to start dialyzing at home, my nurse Rose has to come to my house and pretty much watch me set up for the first time. Then I do a short dialysis run (2 hours). When she finds that everything is satisfactory, off she goes. Then, that same night before I go to bed, I dialyze myself while I sleep. I wanted Rose to come on Monday, but another nurse named Celine has the day off. Since Celine already has the day off, it is not feasible for Rose to take time away from the unit to come and help me. There are a lot of other people doing dialysis training and the nurses who are left would be way too stressed out.

I can’t wait to be out of there. Aside from I won’t have to worry about the blaring iPod of the gentleman beside me…I also be free! FREE!! But, both Dr. Richardson and Rose told me that I’ll have trouble sleeping while on dialysis probably for the first month or so. But after that, I’ll likely sleep much better than I have in years. On top of that….I just put brand new bedsheets and pillow cases on my bed. They have a thread count of 300. I know I’ve heard of bedsheets with much higher thread counts, but I don’t think I’ve ever slept on a bed with bedsheets that have a “thread count”. It’s so luxurious and I’ve slept like a baby for the past 2 nights. Hopefully my luxurious sheets will get me through the next month of what I hope will not be sleepless nights.