Bob's Blog Saturday 3-21-09

Bob Here

I was thinking the other night about the most famous place that I’ve…well…peed.

I know, under normal circumstances, it would be unusual to start off with such a …shall we say…personal, subject.

But face it, we’re dialysis patients. We’re not in normal circumstances.

Peeing is one of those things you take for granted until you don’t do it anymore. I used to think, geez what a pain it is to have to go all the time.

Now I think, ahhh, those were the good old days.

I’ve peed in some pretty prominent places. The State House in Austin, Texas. (I think I’m up to three State Houses actually – Texas, New York, and Massachusetts. I grew up in New York and went to college in Boston.)

Stadiums, Arenas, Museums, all kinds of different venues.

Any places of note that you all can think of?

Its pretty much a guy thing, but how about times when you’ve peed in public?

One time in my college years, I was with some friends at a party in Boston. High rise apartment building with a balcony. There were probably 40-50 people there, and one bathroom.

Deadly combination.

After a couple of hours, of course, there was a line for the bathroom. We were all drinking beer, so my friend and I decided that we couldn’t wait. Pretty soon, there we were, going off the balcony.

Problem was, some guy was walking his dog down below.

Big oops there.

How about your favorite peeing joke?

Here’s mine.

Catholic school – involves a priest and a nun, with all due respect.

The nun comes running in the Head Priest’s office, all in a tizzy.

The priest says, “Sister, what’s wrong?”

The nun says, “I was walking down the hallway and heard a commotion in the Boy’s Room. I looked in to see what was going on, and there were three boys in there seeing how far up they could pee on the wall.”

The priest says, “Interesting, what did you do?”

The nun says, “I hit the ceiling!”

An oldy, but goody.

How about others, I’m sure there’s a stream of them out there.

(Did I just say, “a stream of them”? Now, THAT’S funny.)

Anyway, on a related subject, it seems that I “p’d” some people off with my blog last week, and I just wanted to say, that was not my intention.

I told a humorized story about a fellow patient getting ratted-out by his girlfriend on his lifestyle. Some people felt like I was ridiculing him and disagreed with my stance on getting upset with people who don’t take care of themselves.

First of all, I’m the last one who would ever ridicule a fellow dialysis patient. We’re all brothers and sisters, and it helps to stick together.

Second, I have a tendency to look at the humorous side of things. It’s part of my nature.

I really feel like you have to laugh when you have the chance in order to get through the more difficult times in our lives, like right now for instance.

Sometimes, my propensity for trying to be funny comes at the wrong time.

One time, early in my working career, I was the head of a small organization, and my boss was reaming us all out on a job that he felt was poorly done.

He asked me a question about what I was thinking when I made a certain decision that he disagreed with.

I couldn’t think of anything brilliant to say, and it was pretty tense, with everyone watching us.

So after a small delay, I heard myself say,

“You’re bald.”

I heard gasps in the background, and everyone just watched.

After what seemed like an eternity, the boss finally snorted and laughed a little bit. The tension relieved, the entire group went into hysterics.

Living on the edge. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

The story about the other patient was a true story, although I did add some, what I thought, were humorous touches. The thing you have to understand is that he – the other patient - was laughing about the situation too.

He was looking over to me after each girlfriend revelation, I would just shrug, as if to say, “what can you do?”, and then we would both laugh.

Of course, it got more serious afterward, when the doctor, nurse, and nutritionist started working with the guy on possible remedies.

Fact is, I do get upset when people don’t take care of themselves, but its because I care.

I hate seeing someone else have a difficult treatment, because, I promise you, think of something that’s gone wrong during a treatment, and its happened to me. Probably multiple times. So I know how it feels. And I hate to see it happen to someone else, especially if it could have been avoided.

I really hate it when long-term health issues ensue. Like I said, we’re all part of the same family.

Last week, someone said they thought dialysis was akin to treatment for cancer.

Sorry bro. Not even close.

The guy I mentioned from my workplace had to give up working because it got too much for him. I admire this guy to no end.

He was still trying to work, but the cancer has spread to his brain, and he lost feeling on the right side of his face. His doctors told him he would go blind within a month and has a 50% chance of living through the year. This guy is in his 30’s with a wife and two young kids.

Think if he had the option of thrice-a-week treatments to cure all his major symptoms, that he wouldn’t jump at the chance?

You bet he would.

I’m just saying that as tough as we have it, there are MANY people who are much worse off.

That’s why I manage to get up every morning and go to work, even after a tough treatment the previous evening and a sleepless night. Because I can. That’s more than I can say for my buddy.

So, please don’t take it the wrong way when I make light of a serious subject. I feel like we need to take every opportunity to laugh, if only because it beats crying.

So remember Bob’s prescription for keeping your spirits high.

Remember to stay active.
Remember to laugh.
Remember your binders.
And…Remember The Alamo. (Hey I know it doesn’t fit, but I am from Texas)

Thanks for reading. Hope everyone has a good week of treatments. Take care.