A Hard Blow

Like everyone during the game of life, events happen which are like a foul ball flying in and hitting me in the face. Hard!

Until six weeks ago I enjoyed my routine life. During dialysis on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, I read TIME and the New Yorker; the afternoons passed without much discomfort. I came home afterwards and collapsed. I watched television. Then I woke up the next morning feeling good. Four days a week I wrote my blog and did whatever else I wanted to do. A routine.

Then one Saturday I went to dialysis. The tech stuck a needle into my arm. The artery side of the graft pumped blood out. Then she pierced my arm three times trying to find the vein. The nurse came and probed and twisted the needle The dialysis machine started. After ten minutes the vein clotted. The tech pulled out the needle and with it came a blood clot six inches long. That was the end of dialysis for that day, and, as it turned out, for the next week.

Monday morning the vascular clinic in Dallas called and asked me to come as quickly as I could. I woke my brother Don in his home in North Garland, and he said he would get dressed and come take me to Dallas. I called the vascular center and was told, “As long as you can be here by 11:00.”

We arrived at 10:30. At noon I was put on a gurney and left in a cubicle with a big clock to watch until 4:00, when I was taken to surgery. For the next hour the surgeon tortured me by digging in my arm without any pain killer. My chart said I was allergic to opiates. I screamed. I didn’t care what the chart said. I pleaded, “Give me something!” The doctor ignored me as he inserted a balloon in my vein. I got home at 6:30. I had nothing to eat or drink since breakfast.

On Tuesday I went to dialysis. The vein still clotted. Don took me to a vascular center in Plano, Texas, where I was taken promptly into surgery, and where, again, I was tortured without any pain medication. Late that afternoon I was sent back to the dialysis center in Garland, where the vein was still blocked. The nurse asked me to go back to Plano the next day. I refused.

Wednesday I went to see my surgeon. Dr. Cook took one look at my arm, black with bruising from wrist to elbow, and said, “Jesus! Why didn’t they send you to me in the first place?”

Early Thursday morning Don took me to Baylor Garland Hospital. Under the blessing of anesthesia, the surgeon put a catheter in my chest, two little tubes that hang down where my right breast used to be. Now for dialysis the nurse unscrews the ends and connects to the dialysis machine. No needles for now. But: I was told not to get the catheter wet. That’s a problem for a gal who wants to shower every morning.

My brother Don was my savior that week, spending four days coming to my apartment to get me, taking me all over Dallas County, and waiting patiently while the doctors worked on my arm. I don’t know what I would have done if these complications happened when I was alone in Albuquerque. When I need help, Don always comes cheerfully. What a good brother!

Don took me back to the hospital on Monday where Dr. Cook tried to unblock the graft in my left arm. It didn’t work. He put in a new graft in my upper arm. I now have an ugly red wound about four inches long in my left elbow.

I will continue to receive dialysis through the catheter in my chest until the new graft is completely healed. That may take six weeks. I never thought I’d say, “I will be glad when the tech can stick needles in me again.” Meanwhile, an aid comes to my apartment three times a week to wrap me in Saran so I can shower.

I have decided to live. Monday night I was not sure I wanted to. I hurt. I feel miserable. I don’t write blogs. I sit in my recliner with Charlie on my lap, my left arm propped up on a pillow, and feel sorry for myself.

Then I remember all the other old ladies who live in this retirement community. Each has health problems; many are worse off than I am. I don’t have diabetes. I don’t have high blood pressure. My heart is strong, no arteries clogged.

If you come to my apartment in the next six weeks, you will find me and Charlie in the recliner watching Turner Classic Movies. Last night it was Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in "Gaslight."