Bob's Blog Saturday 10-17-09

Bob Here

Four Days in The Desert

My throat was parched and my eyes were glassy when I woke up as I tried to remember where I was.

I realized that I was still in the desert, not a sign of civilization anywhere.

All the things you see when a character in the movies is stuck in the desert become a reality.

Sand, or brown dirt everywhere, tumbleweeds, cactus plants, the occasional scorpion.

My heart starts to pound when I realize how dire my situation is.

I’m thirsty as all get out. I don’t remember the last time I had water.

Not that that’s a news story, dialysis patients are always thirsty, right?

But this is a thirst that consumes my being, and I’m honestly not sure how much longer I can stand it.

The sun comes up and it’s beating down on me, when I try to move it gets worse.

Then everything comes together and I finally black out and collapse on the unforgiving ground.

Now, I’m not telling you all this because I want you to feel bad for me.

Seriously, don’t feel bad for me. Because…

Well, because none of that crap really ever happened.

No, the four days in the desert I was referencing were part of a trip last weekend to Southern Arizona, where my wife was competing in the USTA National Tennis Tournament.

A pretty remarkable accomplishment, considering that she’s been playing for a little over four years now and this is her second trip to Nationals.

And considering the fact that at 52, she’s a good bit older than everyone else on the team and 15-20 years older than most of the people she competes against.

So, I, of course, made the trip with her to provide whatever support I could.

And, yes, for those of you who were wondering, I made a solemn vow not to embarrass her with any of my previously documented airhead antics.

You know, its one thing to act up in from of her local friends, they more-or-less expect it, but it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame when you’re talking about the best players from all over the country.

So, we made arrangements to attend, and, of course, that meant scheduling an out-of-town dialysis treatment, always a real “pleasure.”

We got there on a Thursday, and my treatment was scheduled for Friday morning, so we spent the day practicing and getting used to the altitude and extremely low humidity

Now, you all might remember that I fancy myself as quite the tennis player too, so I felt right at home warming up the wife and some of her teammates, elite players all.

Well, ok, I wasn’t exactly warming them up.

Well, ok, the truth is they took pity on me sitting on the sidelines and let me come out and semi-embarrass myself by pretending that I was in their league, ok?

Anyway I got through that episode without any major injuries, and without hurting any of the other players.

But I will say that the dry air down there really made me feel a little shriveled up.

You know how we all feel a little “dry” anyway, because of our fluid restrictions.

Well, working out in 0% humidity really magnifies that feeling.

About a half-an-hour in, I practically had to roll my tongue back up into my mouth before I tripped over it on the court.

So then came Friday morning, and my “visitor’s” dialysis treatment.

I don’t know about you all, but I always feel a little trepidation (read: fear) going to an out-of-town center.

You never know about the attendants, and how their attitudes are going to be, or the cleanliness or setup of the center.

Certainly some of the posts here lead you to believe there is a wide variance in these qualities among the centers we all attend.

So anyway, I found the center, no small accomplishment since it was behind a hotel and shopping strip center.

I walk in, and my first impression is pretty ok, the place seemed clean and well-staffed.

I’m still a little uncomfortable, and my discomfort usually manifests itself as feeble attempts at humor.

A lady, who I guessed was the charge nurse came up to me and said, ”Are you looking for a chair?”

I said, “Yes, and a dialysis treatment would be nice too since I'm here ha ha ha ha…”

She’s just looking at me, completely straight-faced.

I stopped my little laugh with an <ahem.>

She said, “Are you Robert?”

I said, “Yes, but please call me Bob. The last time I was called Robert, I was caught red-handed looking at Bikini-Babes.com ha ha ha ha…”

Nothing. Not even a twitch.

<Ahem>

So, at that point, I gave up on my attempts at humor, figuring she probably thought everyone from Texas was a few tacos short of a fiesta platter.

She took me to my chair and, lucky for me, my attendant knew about the tennis tournament, so we bonded some about that.

The treatment went pretty much without a hitch, although I think I came off as a little picky.

After you’ve been on dialysis for a while, you like your needles put in a certain way, like to be taped up a certain way, and so on.

So I explained all this to her, and aside from catching a little bit of an 'Are You For Real?' look from her, she complied pretty nicely.

Anyway, the tournament went ok. Team Texas didn’t make the semi-finals, but we stayed and watched the end of the tournament and saw some pretty exciting game play.

Any interesting or scary stories you all have from road-trip treatments?

Thanks. Hope everyone has a good week of treatments in your own centers. Take care.