Liquid Courage, or The Rinse Cycle

Last month we celebrated the life and legacy of that immortal American and civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by purchasing a gleaming white new Speed Queen washer and dryer at a local appliance store in Champaign. Gotta love those MLK Day sales!

Because I have taken on the role of househusband during my two years of dialysis treatments and subsequent kidney transplant, Karen's excitement over our new acquisition made me feel a little like a character out of The Help: "Look, Jimmy, we bought you a brand-new washer and dryer so you can do more loads of wash for us than ev-ah!"

Oh, joy.

Truth to tell, I love doing laundry. There's a certain zen tranquility for me in making dirty things clean again and folding them with the precision of origami. What I didn't love even a tiny bit was schlepping pounds of clothes to the laundromat every couple of weeks, hoarding quarters and surrounded by strange smelly people.

But the laundromat was a necessity, because (and here's the tie-in to my kidneys, in case you were wondering) up until the transplant, we had to use the utility room in our apartment to hold all the cases of my dialysis solution.

In the way that life works, two days before we received "the call" that a donor kidney was available for me, the company that made my dialysis supplies dropped off its monthly shipment of 32 boxes of Peritoneal Dialysis fluid, about 2x2 feet each, with two five-liter bags of liquid in each box. I had used exactly one case before the transplant team called.

When we returned from Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis with my gleaming new kidney, we called the dialysis company and explained the situation.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we can't take the cases back."

"But they're unopened. Maybe someone else could use them."

"I'm sorry, but there's the possibility of contamination."

"Contamination? The boxes have the original factory tape on them! The bags of fluid are sealed in a second plastic bag to keep them secure! How on earth could they get contaminated?"

I'm sorry, sir, but that's our policy."

Somebody please, tell me again why the cost of health care in America is so high?

We called my dialysis nurses at DaVita Champaign. Same story. I never fashioned myself as the sadistic poisoner of Peritoneal Dialysis bags, but I must look that way to a sizable group of people. We're still looking for takers for the drainage bags, extension tubes and other paraphernalia that accompany the PD process. No questions asked. Just come get 'em! We'll even deliver!

So, discouraged by having no other option, Karen and I staged our own Seven Percent Solution at our kitchen sink: the Great Dialysis Juice Dump. Each of us armed with a tiny Olfa Touch-Knife (that I extolled in a December 2010 blog titled "Flashes From the Frontline"), we attacked the cases – slicing open the cardboard boxes, flattening them, cutting open the hard plastic coverings and piercing each five-liter bag, letting the dialysis liquid goosh into the sink. What emotional release!

It was a true team effort; even with both of us working shoulder-to-shoulder and focused on the task, the process took almost two hours to complete.

We ended up with a stack of cardboard boxes nearly three feet high and an overflowing pile of plastic bags. Being the dedicated recycler I am, I personally carried every box and bag outside to the nearest appropriate bin.

Karen applauded my effort.

We were both tremendously saddened to destroy so much lifesaving fluid in such a wasteful manner. However, in a very real way, our new washer and dryer represent far more than timesaving appliances that allow Jimmy to do more loads more often. They stand as constant reminders that the Peritoneal Dialysis that required their space and dominated so much of our daily lives is no more. Hallelujah!

All because of a new appliance of mine that's washing my blood every second. Oh, what a lucky man am I.

Jimmy Springs a Leak

Why they waited until the day of their mutual birthdays to decide they had to buy presents for each other, I'll never understand. But the twins, Madison and Emma, pleaded with me to drive them to the mall on a recent Friday after school. Happily, in January I bought a 2011 black Chevy Camaro (feel free to oooh and aaah below) because I decided to fully enjoy my only midlife crisis, so I'm pretty excited to drive anybody anywhere these days.

The girls love to shriek and cavort from its back seat over the sheer power of the Camaro's mighty V6 engine – which, come to think of it, may have been the reason they waited until they were sure I would be the one to ferry them in my "rocket car," as they call it. They have even bestowed it with a nickname: 'Black Betty." I'm thinking seriously of getting a vanity license plate for it this summer that will simply read, "BAMALAM." Those who get it will get it.

Happy Black Man With Snappy Black Car  

Anyway, we're in Decatur motoring down Martin Luther King Boulevard en route to the mall (why do bad things always seem to happen on MLK?) when I decide to call The Wife on my Droid and let her know where I'm headed.

"Gadzooks!" (or something like that) I think to myself. "My phone is wet! How can that be?"

Then, in fast order, I realize the right side of my jeans, my leather jacket and, yes, my underwear are soaking through, too. I pull back my jacket and unleash a spout of liquid shooting straight up into the air – all over the interior of my brand-new beautiful car. Worse, that liquid was quickly identified as warm body juice; the joint where my catheter connects to its external tubing had cracked, and the dialysis fluid that should have been circulating around my peritoneal cavity was suddenly circulating around my Camaro.

As the girls squealed and pointed, I grabbed the leak with one hand and steered the car into a church lot, no easy feat when you're driving a stick shift. I put the rocket car in park, leaped from the vehicle and attempted to cap my gusher. The twins, trying to be extremely helpful, grabbed everything they could find to stuff the leak: used paper tissues on the floorboard, a dirty rag on the backseat. I think I even remember seeing an old PayDay wrapper in all the confusion.

Praise God we were less than a mile from my DaVita dialysis clinic. Doubled over like a gunshot victim in a TV show and working my car's clutch with whichever foot was closest, we sputtered into the DaVita parking lot. It was nearly 5 o'clock on a Friday, but I prayed someone would still be there who could help.

Prayer answered. There has been considerable flux and turnover among the Peritoneal Dialysis nurses in Decatur, and Karey was virtually a PD rookie, but she happily agreed to give my catheter repair a try. While she called Champaign for advice and inspiration, I waited anxiously. When you have a manmade hole in your body with a tube hanging out of it, you are repeatedly warned that infection is a constant danger. Peritonitis. Can be fatal if unchecked, you're cautioned. And we've just slapped every filthy thing we could find on top of it to stem the tide. We did everything short of blow on the tube to hold the water back! If the catheter gets infected, or needs to be removed, my days on PD could be over.

Emma and Madison, for their part, were wonderful, supportive and encouraging. It took nearly an hour for the emergency patching to be completed, and the girls busied themselves by watching TV in the clinic lobby, talking up patients coming in for their treatments, and taking a semi-guided tour of the facility. (That is, peeking in the open doors.)

Madison and Emma, Acting a Fool at the DaVita Dialysis Clinic   

"Jim," Madison enthused, "this is the best birthday ever!"

I'm sure Maddie doesn't know the meaning of hyperbole yet, but for some reason I had a hard time believing that.

Finally the leak was sealed, temporarily; I had to journey to Champaign the following Monday for the permanent fix. As she was putting on her best finishing touches, Karey asked, "Why didn't you use your clamp?"

"What clamp?"

"Do you have a little white clamp they gave you to tie off the fluid line in case of emergencies?"

Sheepishly, I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out the small pillbox I carry to hold my mealtime medication. I opened it. Yep, there it is, all right. A little white clamp. Good thing I have that, in case of emergencies. Hey, I could use some emergency training!

As we walked back to the car, I heard a small, tentative voice behind me.

"Jim," Emma asked, "can we still go to the mall?"

What could I say? They had done so well, been so helpful, reassuring and patient. Off we went to the mall.

"But remember, ladies, my underwear is still soaking wet!" I announced. "So please shop as quickly as you can!"

Ever try to make two 11-year-old girls shop quickly?

Ever go through a mall walking like John Wayne?

P.S.: The Wife watched me the entire weekend like I was planning an escape, looking for any hint of fever or discomfort, but I came through with flying colors. No peritonitis. No infection. God is good. All the time.