Looking for Silver Linings ...

Sometimes life throws us a curve ball.

I'm not sure how everyone else's mind works ... but I have always believed I can do anything if I can just wrap my mind around it.

Even simple things.  Let's say there's a dinner party you'd rather not attend.  You just mentally approach it differently ... look at the situation and focus on the positive until you can see it in a way that you can live with.   For instance ... the party won't last forever ... we'll 'll be home by eight o'clock ... and this restaurant DOES serve those noodles I like.  Whatever it takes until the situation doesn't seem so bad at all.

There has to be a name for what I do ... and I'm not entirely sure it's mentally healthy.  Some kind of avoidance?  Mental self-deception?  I could Google it ... but why bother.  It works for me.

So this is how I've approached dialysis.  Obviously NO option is good when it comes to dialysis.  But I looked at the pros and cons of both types and decided on Peritoneal.  Cons ... ugly, disgusting tube coming out of my belly the rest of my life.  Pros ... a somewhat "normal" life.  I'd be cycling while I slept and everything else would be the same.  Life ... work ... dinner ... movies ... trivia.  Everything else would be basically the same.

Well, that's no longer an option.  The surgeon tried to place the PD port on Thursday and there are too many adhesions ... too much scar tissue in my stomach area from my hysterectomy.  He could clean it out ... but he said he's tried that with several patients and the adhesions just grow back.  You're looking at multiple surgeries with little to no positive outcome.

So now ... hemodialysis.  Monday I go for the consultation with the vascular surgeon who will create a fistula on my arm.  Four hour treatments ... three times a week.  I'm choosing to go to a center for now because I can't imagine bringing that much medical equipment into our home ... or sticking myself with the needles ... or, worse yet, asking Stoney to do it.  It's just not something I can wrap my head around at all.

I'm trying to find the silver linings.  Little things ... we got our sides of the bed back since I don't have to be close to the bathroom anymore.  I get to shower now ... which would've been an issue with the PD port tubing.

I'm trying SO hard to find the angle ... to find how I can make this into a good thing.  I'm terrified of how this will affect my work.  I do NOT want to go on disability.   I know eventually there will be a routine ... that eventually there will be a new normal.  I just can't see it right now.  I'm scared that I've waited too long.  I'm already at 11% GFR and fistulas have to strengthen and take time to mature ... which takes six to twelve weeks.  Which ... yay?  Two to three months without treatment I suppose.

I know something will click ... and this will all be alright.  I know it will.  I just have to wrap my head around it somehow.

Time, she says,
“There’s no turning back,
Keep your eyes on the tracks”
Through the fields, somewhere there’s blue
Oh, time will tell, she’ll see us through 

Gregory Alan Isakov - Time Will Tell