As some of the readers might know, I have been on dialysis for kidney failure the last four years of my life. My only chance of getting off of dialysis, is for me to get a kidney transplant. And since no one I know can give me one, I have to rely on one harvested from an organ donor after they die, unfortunately.
The last couple of months, I’ve been working with a hospital in Houston in an effort to get on their donation list so I can hopefully get a kidney one day.
And today in Houston was absolutely harrowing. This particular hospital does the evaluations for their list in three days. My first day was in March, the second in April and the third on the First of May. So, for some jacked reason they always want the day to start like at the ass crack of dawn. So I literally was up and getting dressed at 4:15 in the MORNING! Do you know how hard it is to concentrate on putting on eye shadow at that hour? No lie, I was up that early to be in Houston for a 7:45 am blood test.
And get a load of this: I couldn’t’ eat or have coffee until the tests were done! Me. Without coffee. AT THE CRACK OF DAWN! You know I was flipping out .
Four of us went to Houston, me, my dad, and his two friends.
Riding into Houston was alright. No bad traffic, no bad weather…it was all good. We got into the hospital which is this ridiculously large maze of connecting buildings. It literally is like a city within itself. It’s so big, that each building has it’s own cafeterias and Starbucks (and the letter bringing me in tells me specifically which garage to park in!!!)
Now, I only had two tests to do. One was to get what they called “fasting” labs drawn and the other was a chemical stress test.
I went in, was called about 15 minutes later and a very nice and capable woman tied my right arm up, popped a butterfly needle in and get this--filled up TWENTY-FIVE vials with my blood I was kind of shocked she had to fill so many. The most I had ever had drawn was 14. But she filled all twenty-five (making 34 with the 9 that had been drawn on Day One) and I actually had some blood left. And it didn’t hurt at all.
That took less than 10 minutes.
Then I had to take off, from the 12th floor where I was, down to the second floor, leave that building, walk a mile in the complex of buildings and then ride up another elevator to the 16th floor of that building. Now I made this trek alone, because I didn’t want my dad or his friends to have to drag ass that far. But I was pretty freaked because I am scared to death of elevators, ever since I was trapped on one a few years ago.
Anyway, I get to the place for my stress test and that’s when the fucking trouble started.
A man named Roberto called me back and started explaining how the test would go. I’d get the chemical that would react and make me feel like I had run for like 20 minutes at top speed. Then I’d get x-rays before and after to see how my heart looked. I said okay, let’s go. So Roberto split and this woman named Gertie came in. that’s where it got awkward. I had to take off my top and stand their with my boobies hanging out as Gertie attached little electrodes to me and actually bound my chest with an ace bandage. (to hold a heart monitor) Okay, Gertie split, and Roberto came back, so he could put the IV in my arm so we could get the testing together. Now I wasn’t too worried, I’d had the same sort of thing done in Galveston at a hospital there. So Roberto feels around my arm. And I should have know something was going to go wrong, because I did NOT see the vein he was trying to hit. The needle went in and the screaming started. It hurt, that’s all it did. HURT. And he kept doing what he called “threading” the needle which means put rock it back and forth in the vein trying to get the blood to come through which is incredibly painful. Finally as he claimed he had it--he didn’t, trust me--I jerked slightly and he missed again. I was in pain. When you hurt, you move, damn it. So that needle didn’t work. We separated a few minutes, calmed down and I was a fool and let him try again. So he hit a “vein” about 2 inches over. It didn’t work and it hurt so bad, my arm swelled and I wasn’t able to bend it at the elbow for over and hour. I started crying, and that freaked the guy out, so he said he was going to get the doctor, this guy named Todd to try. Now, usually, you only get to stick me ONCE before I take flight and get the hell outta there. But since we’d come so far, I was trying to put up with it. Todd comes in.
Now keep in mind, I’m alone, sleep deprived, hungry and thirsty. I was starting to turn into a major bitch, and it was by the grace of God I didn’t snatch his balls off his body.
Me and Todd sat and talked as he molested my hand looking for a vein for a few minutes. He picked out a vein I could see, which made me feel a little better. It didn’t last long. He got the needle in and was trying to thread it, and he seemed hell-bent on doing it even though it wasn’t happening. He kept trying to push saline in to flush it, and it was aching and finally I just yelled, telling him to let it go. It was a goddamned mess, blood went everywhere. And I didn’t know what to do. So I was telling them let me call my dad to see if he thought I should let them give it another try before I told them all to merrily go to hell. I was so hungry I was getting dizzy, damn it.
It took forever to get a hold of my dad because I had to call through all sorts of channels. Then when the nurse called my dad, he freaked out because I guess he thought I died while doing the test or something. He was scared and I had to calm him down. Then the nurse on the other end said the best thing I had heard all day.
Told me not to let those people stick me again and come back over to the other building. I was so happy, I could have done a flip. You know, those stress test people had the nerve to look sad I was leaving? I didn’t give a flying fig!.
I didn’t even wait for Gertie to come back and help get all that stuff off me. I’ve been in the hospital enough to know how to remove stuff like that. All the electrodes and ace bandage came off, and I got dressed and bolted.
But not before stopping at one of the Starbucks and getting a large iced caramel macchiato. It was the best damn tasting cup of coffee in the world at that moment. Like angels started singing.
I went back over to the 12th floor where my dad and his friends were and I was a mess, covered in band aids, and I know I looked pitiful.
I rescheduled the test and I hope when I do go back that whomever does the IV knows what they are doing! I finally did get to eat though. A big messy whopper with fries and a soda. I’m full and pleased and just a little bit sore.
But I’ll live.
I’ve lived through worse. Try getting stitches WITHOUT anesthesia!
I’ll blog about the next trip in and it better go well!
MY POOR ARM AND HAND!!!!
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