Anxiety

Today I went to the “Vascular Clinic” because of problems with my left arm. In order to have dialysis a surgeon put a thing into my forearm – graft, fistula, shunt, whatever you call it -- this gismo feels like a loop of plastic tubing inside my arm.

Each time I have dialysis, a technician sticks needles into the two sides of my arm, on the right into the artery to pull blood out, on the left to push clean blood back in. Most times the treatment works perfectly, and I spend the three hours reading Newsweek, Time, or The New Yorker.

Other days something goes wrong in the arterial “pull”. The light on the dialysis machine blinks red. Everyone in the room cringes to loud, raucous beeps.

The tech comes running, shuts off the noise, pulls off bandages, and adjusts the needle in my arm. Sometimes turning the needle over solves the problem. Last Tuesday the beeping kept starting every 10 or 15 minutes for three hours.

The doctor signed orders for me to go to the Vascular Clinic to determine what was wrong with my arm.

I was afraid.

At the clinic I was stretched out on an operating table. As always when under stress, I talked constantly as nurses and techs hooked me up to oxygen monitor, blood pressure cuff, and EKG machine. I tried not to think about the impending procedure while a nurse explained all the things they MIGHT have to do to me, such as put a balloon into my artery to open it up, or, if that did not work, insert a shunt, or if the artery was completely blocked, surgery to put a “port” in my chest or neck.

When one nurse commented that we had the same birthday, I launched into a talk about my birthday at the Hilton Hotel in Izmir, Turkey, where “Conrad Hilton” gave me a birthday cake. Talking distracted me from my fear as I anticipated the doctor digging in my arm.

I was draped in sterile blankets and a heavy lead shield on my chest to protect me from x-rays. A drape kept me from seeing my arm. From behind the curtain I heard the doctor’s voice as he introduced himself. Quietly he explained that he was going to stick a needle into my arm to deaden the area and then insert a catheter.

“Ready?”

“Never” (It always hurts when the needles go in for dialysis.)

This time I did not feel a pin prick.

The nurse said, “Ilene and I have the same birthday. Where did you say you had that birthday?”

“Turkey”

From behind the curtain came the doctor’s voice, “Where in Turkey?”

“Izmir”

From there the doctor and I launched a conversation about the ruins at Emphasis, opera in Prague, bad food in China. In between his telling me that he found a narrow place in the vein and needed to use a balloon to open it, he told me he did not like the Greek Islands. “All the same white houses and nothing to do but buy cheap stuff.” He wanted to go to Russia. We agreed that tour groups don’t give enough time for places like the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

About that time he said, “We’re finished here. You can go home.”

The whole process, which I dreaded, took half an hour – and was totally painless.

How many times have I worried about things unnecessarily? Today I came home giddy with relief.