Bob's Blog Saturday 10-31-09

[BobN]

Bob Here

Since its Halloween, I got to thinking about the different kinds of Horrors that we dialysis patients face.

Some of them are pretty powerful, I mean, if you showed a non-patient the needles that they stick in us, they’d probably faint dead out on the ground.

But I don’t think that’s the scariest horror.

And, around Halloween, there are all kinds of scary things around.

But the scariest horror, in my opinion, is not the skeleton horrors.

Or the vampire horrors.

Or the zombie horrors.

No, the horror that affects us the most is…

Brace yourselves…

The Hungry Horrors.

I don’t know about you all, but on most days after a treatment night, I look like one of those dudes from “Night of the Living Dead,” looking to chomp off a finger from anyone who comes within reach.

I’ve been trying to figure out what it is about dialysis that makes me want to eat up the placemat, tablecloth, and plastic phony fruit - bowl and all.

Most nights coming home from a treatment, it takes every ounce of strength in my being to keep from stopping at the nearest Mickey D’s and ordering up a triple quarter pounder with cheese, an industrial-sized fries, enough chicken mcnuggets to feed an army, and washing the whole thing down with a pepperoni pizza.

The next day, I have a pretty good breakfast, that keeps me from keeling over.

But by about, oh say 10 o’clock, the horrors take over my life.

I can be in a very important budget meeting, and instead of concentrating on funding sources for a critical new initiative, I’m wondering whether the special of the day in the cafeteria will include a side of onion rings.

And heaven forbid someone should use food in a routine conversation.

The other day we were having a sidebar in a meeting and one person said that someone she had disagreed with in the meeting was “dumb as a bowl of spaghetti.”

I started thinking, hmmm, a bowl of spaghetti, huh?

Then my mind went on a complete tangent.

I was wondering, with meat sauce? With garlic?  Maybe some sausage?

And then I heard…”Bob?...Bob, what do you think?”

I realized someone had asked me a question while I was off in Prego la la land.

I tried to cover up my disconnect with a lame attempt at humor.

I said, “I think I need the Cliff Notes, ha ha ha ha…”

People just looked at me like I had completely lost it.

<Ahem>

I was able to recover from that, but I had spaghetti on the brain for the rest of that morning.

By the time lunch actually rolls around, I’m pretty much a basket-case.

The thing is, non-dialysis days are not nearly as bad.

I mean, I have a good appetite, but I don’t go around looking like a hungry dog in a meat locker.

After lunch, I pretty much get back to normal.

So it’s really that evening, after the treatment is over and the next morning that I’m transformed from a human being into a Pac-Man like dude that eats for a living.

I asked the Nutritionist in my center about this.

(She’s really top-notch, by the way.)

I was a little worried that she might order that I not be let out in public, but she said the hunger thing wasn’t my imagination.

The artificial kidneys that we use in dialysis are not as smart as our real kidneys.  They filter out some of the nutritional content of our blood along with the impurities.

That’s why, she explained, they want to make sure you’re eating well while you’re on dialysis, within the confines of the renal diet, of course.

It also might help explain why my hunger grows from the size of a bread-basket to the size of Mount Everest in a mere three-and-a-half hours.

By the way, I know some of you have mentioned that you eat and drink during your treatments.

I’ve never been able to do that.

One time, early on I tried eating a little something during a treatment and I cramped so bad that you could have rolled me up and hung me on a storage hook in the closet.

The nurse said that for some people, eating causes blood to rush toward your stomach for digestion.

This, combined with the fluid being removed, can cause muscles to cramp.

So, that was the end of eating while on dialysis.

I’ve also found that eating right before your treatment is a bad idea.

So, I’ve accepted the fact that the Hungry Horrors are probably here to stay while I’m on the Big D.

Have you all experienced something similar?

Anyway, hope you all have a good week of treatments.

Remember to stay active, and take care.

[Goofy]

Great post!  Where do you work?  I want to be one of your co-workers.  You are so funny!!  I bet you'd be a lot of fun in the office!

I don't do dialysis but I had to keep reading your post!  You should write a book!!

[tyefly]

  Thx  BoB      GOOD READ......    I have only been on dialysis for a few weeks and it wasnt untill last week that food started to taste good again  and   I think I ate way too much last week cause when I went in and weighied I was way over my dry weight.... and I know that wasnt water....  I too have found that I am really hungry after D.....  and that is a new experience for me..... I have not felt hungry in months.......   seems so strange...yet so wonderfull....  but  I dont like the extra weight.......  and I agree that is the bad side of feeling good with D......

[kitkatz]

Now that is an experience I have had.  After the four hours I was on dialysis I needed food now!   If there was nothing in the house I would burst into tears over it!  Hubby learned to feed me quick, then I would be back to normal.     Now I am on nocturnal dialysis I am not hungry after dialysis. Funny, huh.!