We were greeted by a very knowledgeable and attractive registered nurse named Dawn who led us to a private conference room and played one of those hokey "Your Kidneys and You" movies like you might have endured in sixth-grade health class. At one point, Dawn even strapped on a heavy rubber body apron, almost like a fat suit, to demonstrate the relationship between the kidneys and a form of blood cleansing called Peritoneal Dialysis, or PD.
Dawn and me, at Da Vita
Dawn was very nice and patiently answered all the questions Karen posed. I tried to be my usual nonchalant and amusing self, but let me be honest with you: The specter of what is inevitably going to happen to my body gives me the shivers and makes me more than a bit queasy.
Because to manually replace the function my kidneys perform in cleaning my blood, I either have to have an operation to graft one of my veins to an artery, creating what's called a fistula, so my blood can be pumped out of my body, filtered through a machine and returned – that's called Hemodialysis – or have a tube inserted in my stomach into the lining of my abdominal cavity, where a special solution will flow though to cleanse my blood. That's PD.
Both processes have their advantages and disadvantages, but from where I sit now, they sound like the difference between being asked, "Would you prefer poison, or should we just hang you?" We have decided to go with PD, which is administered in the home and I eventually can do by myself. (Hemodialysis demands actually traveling to a center like Da Vita three times a week, spending eight hours at a shot.) It seems like the lesser of two evils.
I know either method will be for my own good, and will be necessary in order for me to keep living. But they both sound horrific and ominous. The operation was a success, but we lost the patient; I think he passed out.
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