The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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So I think I will start using the wellness Wednesday as a personal diary of sorts to process the goings on in my life. Of course external perspective is always welcome.
I have had chronic kidney disease since I was 12 or so. In the 4 months, after almost two decades I finally started dialysis. I am doing pretoneal dialysis. This for those don't know is not same as hemo. In hemo your blood is taken out of your body and filtered. In pd dialysis solution is pumped in to your abdomen through a permanent catheder. It "dwells" here for some time and the solutes are diffused due to the concentration gradient across the pretoneal membrane (everyone has this) then the fluid is flushed out and replaced with a new batch. This happens 6 times during the night at home. The advantage is your are dialysis almost constantly so diet restrictions are lower and you feel better as I heard with hemo as sessions between visits to the hospital are every two days or so there is a build up of toxins.
So currently feel wise I feel pretty fucking good. You cannot tell I am in organ failure. I do bouldering and currently I am stronger than I was before my kidneys failed. I am pushing around 6c+ which is around V5/V6? I can run etc. Of course if I push myself too much I get hurrendous cramps but other than that it's manageable. The golden lining here is I can still urinate. Which is huge. A lot of people of dialysis lose urination meaning they retain a lot of water. So they might need to go on a fluid diet. But overall for me, things can always be worse.
I am currently hoping for a transplant from my mother. Usually these days as long as the blood groups match the kidney will work particularly if it's from a live donor. But the healthcare system here is insanely slow. But I am hoping for April.
There are some things which trouble my mind. Acutely it's the catheder. I have this thing the length of my forearm (outside my body and more inside) that penetrates my abdomen. The exit site scabs and itches the catheder belt is a constant reminder of this alien appendage attached to my body. This vulnerable point of entry snaking its way around my torso in to my abdomen, keeping me alive. I suffer moment of disphoria and disgust at myself. I am highly vigilant when people approach me and I am quite gitterish.
On the more long term. I fear the "life of the kidney" as my fellow sufferers put it. Even with a transplant you always have the fear of it failing and even not the effects of long term immunosuppression are not nice. You are always on the shit end of things. I don't want to take this lying down. I am a fairly intelligent person with various accolades in my current chosen field. I hope to transition to a field that will allow me to fight.
Lastly I am young, I am in a long term releationship with a supportive partner. I want to make her happy and importantly I want to father children. All aims that are complicated by this thing thrust upon me. I hate to feel self pity and I don't most of the time but despite there existing some number of more unfortunate souls suffering much more than I, most people I interact with have no fucking idea the how much of a blessing their health is. So a bit of self pity sometimes is inevitable. But then again there is also a feeling of superiority that comes from out competing healthy people in the workplace and in sports.
One other thing that I worry about are my hobbies. I love climbing more specifically, alpinism. In the last stages of my disease even when I was severely anemic I was at the height of my alpine abilities. I don't want to stop here. I want to keep pushing my limits and rage against the verdict of fate and I shall.
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