Ignorant things people have said to you

[rsudock]

Last Friday I was talking to a nurse about being a dialysis/transplant patient. He was very interested and kind, and as we ended the conversation he said, "Well hopefully that will be able to grow one out of your own cells someday." When the stupid case manager and dietician chimed in and said, "uummm I don't know...that is stepping on God's turf. I don't know if they will be able to do that since it was created by God. etc..."

I wanted to go off and say, "Well when you are on the other side of the needle give me a call!" The only thing I did say was, "Well it can't be to far off...they did clone that sheep a decade ago!"

People are ass hats!

xo,
R

[Brightsky69]

I say...it's a good thing God is giving us the knowledge to make such amazing medical advances.   

[YLGuy]

Jason, You were not profiled. The police officer had probable cause to pull you over; a broken taillight.  Any violation of the vehicle code gives them probable cause to pull you over. Maybe his questioning of you could have been a little less judgmental; but I doubt he saw your arm and thought "fistula".  Anyways I hope you understand that 99.9% of officers are there to help and enforce the law.

WRONG!
My father was a police officer.  I have known well over a hundred police officers.  One of my fraternity brothers said it best.  He asked me if I knew why he became a police officer.  I said that I did not.  He told me it was because he loved to bust balls.  That is a quote.  My father once told me that the younger the police officer the bigger the prick.  That is a quote as well.   

[JasonEb]

Jason, You were not profiled. The police officer had probable cause to pull you over; a broken taillight.  Any violation of the vehicle code gives them probable cause to pull you over.

I've never disputed that he (and the other half-dozen officers over the past several years) did not have reasonable cause (albeit extremely minor ones) to pull me over.  The part where you can tell it becomes profiling is that every day I see the police pass right by moms in minivans with broken lights, older folk with cracked windshields way worse than mine, people in nicer cars run red lights right in front of them (which, if you remember, happened right in front of him moments before he pulled me over!).  This NEVER happened to me prior to me growing my hair out (which I initially grew out to give to Locks of Love) and became an irregular shaver.

No, they use the valid (yet minor) reasons that almost everyone else in the extremely conservative community (Oklahoma) in order to pull me over and try to get a "catch".  You can't tell me that it takes 25 minutes (the length of time after I gave him my d/l and insurance that he was in his car) to write a warning that the only reason it had for pulling me over was the "other" box was checked and "ws" (I'm guessing meaning "windshield") was written in the blank space next to it.  He was checking for warrants, probably having the insurance verified, and making sure my license was good (Oh, I forgot to mention, when I initially handed him my d/l and insurance, he asked me, "Is your driver license good?"  What the--?  I've probably had less violations on my license in my life than he has!

Whew...deep breath...

Maybe his questioning of you could have been a little less judgmental; but I doubt he saw your arm and thought "fistula".

Of course not.  But neither should he have thought "IV drug user" and accuse me of that outright.  He should have asked "How did you get those marks on your arm?" or somesuch less accusatory question.

Anyways I hope you understand that 99.9% of officers are there to help and enforce the law.

Of course!  Despite these incidents, I am very pro-police.  I just feel that everyone needs to be treated equally.  If they are going to let the lady with the kids in the back seat get away with having a cracked windshield, then they should give me the same consideration.  If they are going to pull me over for extremely minor infractions, then I should see them pulling over the many, MANY vehicles in this area with similar violations and they should be asked such accusatory questions.  I'm sure it'd fly over real well if they asked every heavy set woman they pull over when she is expecting to give birth.

[Deanne]

My sister texted me on my birthday. She's always called me on my birthday in the past and I suspect texting is a way of avoiding me because she first offered to be a donor, then didn't follow through with the transplant center's request that she lose 20 pounds.

Then she sent me a birthday card and signed it like this: "Happy birthday. I hope you have many more."

[MooseMom]

My sister texted me on my birthday. She's always called me on my birthday in the past and I suspect texting is a way of avoiding me because she first offered to be a donor, then didn't follow through with the transplant center's request that she lose 20 pounds.

Then she sent me a birthday card and signed it like this: "Happy birthday. I hope you have many more."

That's the cowardly way out.  Ooooh, this makes me really mad.

[Brightsky69]

Deanne - something like that happened to me. She wasn't my sister but I saw her at a family function after she offered to donate.

She told me the transplant center asked her to lose 20 pounds and she laughed and said "We both know that isn't gonna happen."

That was about three years ago....she is about 20 pounds heavier since she made that statement.

[MooseMom]

What is wrong with people?  They make these offers on such a whim! 

[YLGuy]

What is wrong with people?  They make these offers on such a whim!

Yes, they do.  Don't get me started, 

[MooseMom]

Yes, they do.  Don't get me started, 

You should start a new thread in "transplant discussion" where we could all come and post our stories about "offers" that didn't pan out for some ludicrous reason.  (I want to make it clear, though, that I understand that many people make offers in good faith, only to find themselves unable to donate.  I'm talking here about people who obviously didn't really mean what they said.)

[Brightsky69]

I've had people "quasi family" that offered to donate to me. Then they used it as an excuse to get money from other family. For example "Look how great I am for offering to donate, now can I borrow $5000??  And yes they got the money…. Not from me of course.
In the end I had to rely on the incredible kindness of strangers to get my life back.

[jbeany]

Personally, I didn't get a lot of "I'm doing this to look good offers."  Instead, I got sincere offers from friends who would have never have passed the medical tests - mostly the psychiatric ones.   

[bleija]

i have never asked anybody, and now im getting people coming to me, saying they are willing tell them what they need to do. the first transplant center i worked with told my brother no bc of his asthsma, but when i talked to gainesvillle they said that wouldnt stop him, so i told my brother and asked him if he still wanted to, and yeah i find out monday wheather or not he can, if he cant i have a few others willing to be tested... my boss told me "u are not out of options if your brotherr doesnt work out, there are several ppl here that are willing to get tested" i beleive these are genuine offer bc these are ppl that dont play games. im still awed by it though

[gothiclovemonkey]

My Mother-in-law, who I love and respect very much and she feels the same about me, was talking with my brother-in-law(her son) and the subject came up about my wife and I buying a new car. My brother-in-law asked if we could afford it (he knew of our financial difficulties the last couple years while I could not work). So my mother-in-law tells him that was approved for disability several months ago.

His response was, "Well, disable me."

This happened last week. They were supposed to come over for dinner today. I cancelled.

I told my wife that if he said that in my house I would kick him out! She agreed.

BTW-He is a lazy, pot smoking idiot - if you couldn't tell.

This right here, sounds exactly like MY OWN BROTHER. He often tells me he WISHES he could trade places with me. "Dont have to work, can sit on my behind all day and play video games, ahhh how great would that be?"
I dont even argue with him about it, as it would be pointless.
This is the same brother who told me that he would drink as much pop as he wanted if he was thirsty, and have the 'damn charlie horses' at dialysis. After all, "They arent thaaat bad"
In his defense, I suppose things could be worse... I could be an asshole... hehe

[jbeany]

I think we should "disable" some of these geniuses by making them donate twice as much blood as is normally allowed, and then forcing them to do 10 hours of physical labor.  Then give them 4 hours of sleep while they are strapped in a chair and tell them to get up and do their normal weekend chore routine the next day.  I think that might be a good approximation of what a day after a crummy D sessions feels like, don't you?  Add in a few meds that have muscle cramps as side effects, and it'd be perfect.

[bleija]

i like this idea
"Experience The Big D"
we wont specify but send all those ignorant pppl who think we are faking and such

[ReneePa]

  When I first started in dialysis, one of my patients had a severe charlie horse.  I tried to help her through the pain by making her laugh....Well...I've never been so stupid!  She DIDN'T laugh...and I NEVER did that again.  Definitely the dumbest thing I've ever done.  But I did have good intentions.

I don't think people stop to think of how hard it is for someone on dialysis and what they're body goes through.  Uninformed people can be so very insensitive. 

[Wildrose]

What is wrong with people?  They make these offers on such a whim!

My sister did this to me recently as well. She was very interested in donating (or so she said) until I mentioned she would have to lose weight and now she has all kinds of excuses not to do it. Its hurtful but I'm trying to be understanding of her feelings too... she is scared of medical stuff, can't even stand walking into a hospital.

[CebuShan]

I hate it when people assume that the leg cramps aren't that bad! My husband has always had trouble with leg cramps (especially at night). Before I was on D, I rarely had them. I tried to be patient with him, but not as much as I should have been! Since D, I have apologized to him so many times for not being as sympathetic as I should have!

[RenalSurvivorDotCA]

I had one guy try to tell me my kidney failure was my body resisting the [unhealthy] lifestyle I was imposing on it. He started telling me of this cleansing diet that would bring my body back in line and make me healthy again. Oh, and told me to drink a ton of water. A gallon or more daily.  LMAO. Yeah, right.

I asked him if this "diet" really worked and brought dead kidneys back to life, why were there millions of people suffering from ESRD? Why hadn't they heard of this miracle cure?

[Kayholio]

I had someone tell me once that drinking cranberry juice would help my kidneys. I asked them.."do you know what the word "failure" means?"

[chiawana]

Yeah . . . my husband said something about his diabetes and kidney failure to a "friend" of ours. "Friend" proceeded to blather about how another friend had had some electronic equipment stolen out of his van, and how this was much more important. He literally told my husband to "get over it." Needless to say, this person is no longer our "friend."

[cassandra]

really horrible that. I think its people don't want to hear about illness when its not on television?

[kitkatz]

I had an xray tech tell me I did not look like a dialysis patient.

[amanda100wilson]

Kitkatz, I get told that a lot and I see that as a positive thing.