Ignorant things people have said to you

[cherpep]

I have this aunt - she's not old and feeble, she's actually just a couple years older than me.  Anyhow, she's one of those who is the expert on everything.  She keeps telling me that I need to drink more fluids.  I have explained to her several times why my fluids are VERY restricted, and that they are my enemy.  But, since she knows everything, she insists that everything that is wrong with me would be fixed if I drank more.  Geesh!!!  She even went so far as to tell my kids to take water bottles and place them around my house to 'remind' me to keep hydrated.  Thank goodness my kids are smarter than that. 

[Wattle]

I have this aunt - she's not old and feeble, she's actually just a couple years older than me.  Anyhow, she's one of those who is the expert on everything.  She keeps telling me that I need to drink more fluids.  I have explained to her several times why my fluids are VERY restricted, and that they are my enemy.  But, since she knows everything, she insists that everything that is wrong with me would be fixed if I drank more.  Geesh!!!  She even went so far as to tell my kids to take water bottles and place them around my house to 'remind' me to keep hydrated.  Thank goodness my kids are smarter than that.

    OMG  I don't think I would be so polite.  grrrrr

[Stoday]

I have an aunt like that.

Not my kidney problem but another undiagnosed pain for which I'd been scanned with MRI and ultrasound, but the specialists at the hospital couldn't pin it down.

But my Aunt knew better. She didn't even speak to me before making her diagnosis. She'd only spoken to my wife on the phone. I would be cured if I took this particular brand of snake oil. It was so outrageous I burst out laughing. I couldn't stop. I hadn't laughed as much in a whole year.

I hope I didn't upset her.

 

[MandaMe1986]

Haha wow what some people say.  My bestfriends mother told me to drink some tea, and it would cure my lupus.  Lol. I didn't know what to say, I just smiled and said I would look into it. haha. It was funny.  It is very ignorant, but they also are just trying to help.  The thought is there even if they have no clue what they are talking about.

[marie]

The lady at the drive-thru asked my husband if he beat me up when she seen the scar on my arm from my AV fistula. lol

[cherpep]

The lady at the drive-thru asked my husband if he beat me up when she seen the scar on my arm from my AV fistula. lol

What a thing to say!!  And if you were a victim of abuse - that would be even more inappropriate, if not dangerous.  That lady needs to rethink her words in the future. 

[joyfulmother]

When my mom first went on dialysis, a church friend (who is a nurse and had a FIL on dialysis) told me that most kidney patients on dialysis only lived an average of 7 years.  She told me the same thing at a different time (as if she had forgotten she had shared that bit of news).

So, when I was told I had to go on dialysis, in my mind I started calculating how much time I had and how old my boys would be when I died - and wondering how they would take it at those ages. 

I have a different attitude now but good grief.  Do people even think?  This is not even a "mean" woman - just not thinking.

[kitkatz]

As I was leaving dialysis the other morning at 4a.m. with a sinus infection and no voice my tech turns to me and says:" I hope you feel better. Be sure to drink plenty of fluids." 

[cherpep]

Be sure to drink plenty of fluids." 

Holy automatic-response!!   

[rocker]

Just remembered one story to add here...

As hubby's transplant was failing last year, he was putting on a lot of weight and noticing a lot of swelling.  One day he grew short of breath.  We didn't know the signs to look for, so I convinced him to go to an urgent care center to get checked out.  The brilliant doctor there told him....

Go buy some support stockings to take care of the swelling.

Ok, but what about the shortness of breath?  "Oh, sometimes when something is going on medically that you're not familiar with, you get anxious and that makes you feel short of breath...."

Idiot.  Twelve hours later we were in the emergency room being admitted because he started coughing up blood in the middle of the night.

[Tabbygirl]

Just introduced myself over on the introduction forum, but I had to come here and share this.

Went to the e.r. a week ago for pain unrelated to my dialysis or kidneys, and the nurse comes at me with a syringe and needle and tells me she is going to flush my pd catheter with saline and take a sample of the fluid.  I asked her where she thought she was going to stick the needle in at, thank goodness the pain medicine they gave me didn't work and I was coherent enough to stop her.  I ended up making her put on gloves and a mask and get me a mask and I drained some fluid into a sterile cup for her.  Yikes, what would she have done if I was passed out?

[twirl]

good for you

and you have to be careful in the hospital -
even with signs all over the place -- techs would want to take my blood pressure in my dialysis arm -
one got a little feisty and told me he would take it where he wanted -
I told fine and I will see you in court-

[G-Ma]

I have a sister who has no clue and chooses not to learn about dialysis and side effects and the other day I said I just need you to get informed and understand so we can have a conversation once in a while..she came back with...I don't know what I can do for you...I suppose you think I should give you a kidney...this all very sarcastic....I just said Oh Hell No..I have never nor will I ever ask anything of you.

 

[RightSide]

At my dialysis center, I was trying to tell one of the dialysis nurses about my itching problems during and after dialysis:  That when I try to sleep, the itching disturbs me so much that I've been sleeping in a leather recliner because the soft leather is less itchy, etc.  I said "Of course, you don't know what it's like for me after I go home from here."  She retorted,

"DON'T TELL ME I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!  THAT JUST DRIVES ME CRAZY!"

Gee, lady, I'm the one who is standing on the edge of death, I'm the one who sometimes so terribly after dialysis I can't sleep, I'm the one whose entire life has been turned upside down by ESRD--but telling YOU that you don't know what it's like drives YOU crazy???

[kitkatz]

Would you like to borrow the stick and light saber for a few minutes!   

[Jess21]

I was in a group of people who got asked if they had ever been so thirsty, drank, but never quenched of their thirst.

[BeachLover]

Someone in my family actually said dialysis was like a job you had to goto, thats all. After all it didn't hurt right?
When I to;d them I needed a fistula they siad, well that doesn't sound so bad.
Iwonder how bad it would bew if it were them?

[dwcrawford]

You can't change them.  You just gotta laugh!

[Restorer]

Someone in my family actually said dialysis was like a job you had to goto, thats all. After all it didn't hurt right?
When I to;d them I needed a fistula they siad, well that doesn't sound so bad.
Iwonder how bad it would bew if it were them?

Except you can quit a job. And jobs compensate you for your time.

[kaeli211]

I wear overalls a lot because my right kidney is the size of a football - I don't know which is worse, the many people who call me 'farmer girl' or the nurse who (when I was trying to get admitted to radiology for a fistulagram) told me I was in the wrong place, that "maternity was down the hall"!

[MandaMe1986]

Maternity is down the hall?  Haha

[Rerun]

You could have looked at her and said "you look so much like my Grandmother -- what year were you born"??

           

[okarol]

 

[Inara]

"But she's not even your family!"

Screw you!  She's my best friend, our daughters are best friends.  God brought us together for a reason.  Trust me, she's been more of a blessing to me than I could ever be for her.  We've been part of each others lives for YEARS now.  Family isn't always dictated by blood.  I consider her my sister.

My husband isn't "blood related" to me.  Does that mean we aren't family?  Stupid people.  My husband is the most wonderful man on this planet (IMHO  ).  He's 100% behind me in helping Leslie.  He fixes anything that's broken at our house and hers.  He helps her when I can't. 

Not my family my a$$. 

Inara and Leslie

[BigSteve]

When I was first diagnosed pre-dialysis I heard that same "It's just like a job" figure of speech from both
my Neph and my internist.  It sounded good until I actually got into that hemo chair. I now consign people
who used that phrase to the second circle of Hell where the loudspeakers are forever blasting " It's just like
a job. It's just like a job."