In which the nothing is said to be something and the something is said to be nothing.

Well the first time back went well. And by went well I mean nobody said it sucked and, on the internet, that is literally the best you can hope for. Not a lot to report on today. I guess I should tell the story of the little medical scare I had this week.

Post-treatment on Monday: While waiting for my ride to pick me up, I ran back inside to let the charge nurse know that it was feeling a little uncomfortable when I took in deep breaths. Like when you go running on a really cold morning. Or so I've heard. That particular pain has happened from time to time, but I have a track record with pulmonary ailments getting out of hand since being on dialysis, so I mentioned it. The PA (Physician's Assistant) happened to be there so she walked on over to get in the game. She's nice enough, seems very eager to do a good job. This must be her first dialysis clinic. So they gave me the once over and she ordered, what I call, a 2-shot. Standard chest x-rays, front and side view. I also showed her the rash that had developed on my back. I thought at first it might have just been cystic phosphorus sores, which I'm prone to, because of  the fact that I usually completely disregard my renal "diet". But the area started developing differently.

THE AUTHOR WILL NOW DIGRESS FOR SEEMINGLY NO REASON

I put the word diet in quotes because I can't, in good conscience, call red meat and rice only a "diet". Not a diet I recognize anyway. For real, I get why there's a regimen. I really do. Too much of any food, with the possible exceptions of said red meat, steamed white rice, and anything made with a "something" substitute it seems, will kill a dialysis patient. I've had my battles in my days. Strawberries.

Nonetheless, for most of my time on the machine, I've taken the view that just having to be there for the 15 hours a week (It can get that high when you add wait times and make allowances for rides picking you up on either end) is really the most I was willing to do. So I'm gonna have all the Italian food, Mexican food, cheeseburgers and fries that I felt comfortable with.

AND HERE THE AUTHOR WILL MAKE SENSE OF HIS DIGRESSION

Once my back started to look like a topographical battle map of the Battle of the Bulge and I itched worse than the mangiest mutt you've ever come across, I decided I'd be the bigger man and start following my diet a tad closer and, more importantly, taking my phosphorus binders when I ate. You see a build up of phosphorus, which is in everything, (I'm serious. Look it up. It's in everything. AND all the best stuff!) draws calcium out of your bones leaving them weaker, as well as, depositing that calcium in your blood vessels and making your skin feel like you've been hugging a kindergarten full of chicken pox patients. How do you avoid this and not starve to death like a Somali, you ask? Phosphorus binders. Take 3 or 4 when you eat a meal. depending on how phosphorus heavy it is, and it will bind to the devilish phosphates in the food and your body will not absorb them in such dangerous levels.

 So to this point all the sores I had, thanks to my reluctance to cut anything from my already sparse diet, had been on my back. Which is why I thought, at first, this disturbance on my back was normal. Normal being relative to me, of course. I had been slipping on my binders a bit lately. But when I saw this new "rash" after a few days wasn't acting the normal way I decided to show the PA. She seemed unconcerned.

The next day I go get the pictures taken and go home thinking nothing of it. It hurt a little less to take those breaths and I have a history of thinking there are things making me feel horrible when there are not. At least nothing out of the normal. Who needs an exotic reason  when I could just chalk it up to the fact that I send my blood to the cleaners 4 times a treatment, 3 days a week? What can I say, I like to be more interesting. Keep people locked in, I guess.

Early evening on Wednesday while laying on the couch not feeling at all right, I get a call from one of the charge nurses at my clinic. I answered and noticed right away she seemed upset to have to deliver whatever news she had for me. She then proceeds to tell me that on one of the x-rays, a "mass" was seen on my right lung. I lost my breath. (No pun intended) I asked her to repeat herself, or at least I think I must have because she did, and I nonchalantly acknowledged the news while recording the number for the pulmonologist, which the nurse was apparently reading to me. "Oh. She's changed offices." What a weird to think at a time like that, I thought.

So I hang up and take a minute to collect myself before my next call. Now I had been given bad medical news before, surely, but nothing like this. Being told I had to go on dialysis was certainly hard to hear. Both times. But not once had death immediately popped in my head the way it had just five minutes ago. Especially untimely death. So at that point I just let myself lose it a touch and I called a very good friend of mine, then my parents, to deliver the news. I wanted to call a few more people but I figured that the least the number of people I told was also the least number of people who had to worry about it. I suppose by that logic I should have just kept the news to myself. But, I think, when a man of any age hears that he may have cancer he just wants to talk to the woman closest to him and/or his mom. So I did both. Because when ill, I can be a baby. Ask around. It's true. Talking to these trusted people helped tremendously.

So the call the next morning, the very first thing in the morning as I did not sleep, was supposed to be to schedule an appointment ASAP to get a second opinion. As it turned out, that second opinion wouldn't be available until Tuesday. Yeah, that wasn't going to sit well with me so I called my dialysis clinic, they got in touch with my nephrologist and he told me to go to the ER and tell them what was going on and they'd get me some answers.

So I did. And the climactic ending to all this waiting and taking stock of a life driven way, way, WAY down the path clearly not intended? They run a CT scan on my chest with contrast and find nothing. As in the contraction of the phrase "not a thing". Zilch. Nothing but air. He didn't even ask me if I had smoked. Maybe he could tell that. But that didn't even seem to bother him. The doctor came in and announced to the relief of all, and confusion of me, that there wasn't a spot, a nodule, or a mass of any kind anywhere near my lungs. Must have been a mistake on the part of whoever read the x-rays originally, or took them.

So not only didn't I have cancer, I have a pretty clean bill of health going on in the lung department. That's great news! Hey doc, can you take a look at this "rash" on my back and the one that has recently developed on my chest? Oh that? Looks like shingles.

Fuck. Well that figures. I know I am supposed to think, "Hey the mistake x-ray led me to the ER to have the shingles found in very early stages." And I guess that's one way of looking at it. Another way, the way I usually choose, is that I have something else to deal with on top of the whole dialysis thing. Because that's gotten too easy. I needed a challenge in my life...

So now I'm on very strong ant-viral medicine for a week to try to nip the shingles in the bud hoping they work because my mom just had them and they don't sound awesome. Hopefully they work and I'm just subjected to these two areas of irritation and I can be done with it. I would count myself supremely lucky is that's how it unfolds. I've counted myself "supremely lucky" probably four times in this life and most of those situations have involved meeting a woman. But we'll see. Here's hoping this week goes smoother, yeah?