To All the Dogs I've Loved Before

I grew up with dogs.  And each one added his or her own unique and lovely piece to the puzzle of my life.  The least I can do is dedicate a blog post to...all the dogs I've loved before.  Enjoy!

ME WITH LUCY

Dear Lucy:
You were my grandmother's dog, but I quickly grew to love you.  I remember playing with you, and how you used to watch me and my brother, Joe, when we used to play with spinning tops and board games.  The firemen rescued me, my brother, grandmother, and you, too, out of the fire at 31 Oliver Street.
(please read Tenement Life, Part 1) for background info on the fire):

http://www.positivelygina.blogspot.com/2012/06/tenement-life-part-1.html

The American Red Cross put us up in the President Hotel for a while, and we couldn't take you with us.  My grandmother said that she had to put you in a shelter.  I was so sad and lost without you in that strange hotel room, but my grandmother assured me that it was only until we found a real apartment.

Unfortunately, we received that dreaded call from the shelter while we were still at the hotel, that you had passed away.  You were the first dog that broke my heart.  Did you die from a broken heart in the shelter?  I think you did, and I'm so sorry that we had to be separated under such tragic circumstances.  Farewell, dear friend.

LUCY

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ME WITH FRISKY...I was 10 or 11 years old.

Dear Frisky:
Thanks for your loving companionship and staying by my side through hard times.  You were the cutest puppy and had a unique black-colored nose.  You were better than any human friend I could ever find, and comforted me through the tears, and rejoiced with me when I was happy.  Lucky for you, I went through a tom-boy stage at this age, and often played with you by throwing a baseball or a football...yes, inside the apartment.  I hope you enjoyed your time on this earth with me.  Farewell, dear friend.

ME WITH FRISKY...I was around 13 years old.

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ME WITH RUSTY...I was 14 or 15 years old.

Dear Rusty:
My happy, playful puppy.  My grandmother got you for me when I started High School...or maybe my Sophomore year.  It was quite a sad time for me (yet another "sad" time) when my grandpa, Joseph passed away.  I think my grandmother thought she could replace "gramps" with you.  Well, Rusty, you did an excellent job in cheering me up!  I'm sorry for the times I was grouchy and maybe didn't want to play with you.  I was probably going through teenage stuff.  

I still feel guilty, to this day, for moving out of the apartment when I was around 19, and leaving you alone with my grandmother.  I know she took good care of you, but I'm sure you missed playing with me.  You died several years after I moved.  I still hope you enjoyed the time we had together.  I know I did.  Farewell, dear friend.
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My son, Angelo with MooMoo, 1999

MOOMOO  1997-2006

Dear MooMoo:
Like Dorothy said to the Scarecrow... I think I'll miss you MOST of all!  I was handed pure love, in a fur-suit...that day on the streets of Astoria, NY, when a man approached me and had YOU in his arms.  He asked me if I wanted a pit bull puppy, and I said - Yes!

It was towards the end of 1997 and I had just begun dialysis.  You were so special to me, dear MooMoo, and the first dog I had since I was a teenager.  My son, Angelo was crazy about you, but you already knew how much he loved you.  We will always remember your charming personality, strong character, playfulness, and how much you loved stuffed animals.

Most of all, I will remember you as the dog who came into my life when I needed you most.  Strangely enough, you passed away three months after I received my transplant...almost as if to say..."Goodbye Mom, my work is done here."  You may be happy to learn I now have another pit bull...a little girl named Shadow.  I know if you were here, you'd love her.  Farewell, my dearest friend.

Me and Shadow

Dying To Live - Part 2

When I arrived in the Emergency Room, there were a lot of things going on.  I can't remember every detail because I was in "brain fog" due to the toxins that had built up in the blood.  I was shivering cold, but no amount of sheets or blankets could warm me.  Blood was drawn and sent to the lab.  Someone I had been seeing at that time arrived and stayed with me.  I still remember the look on his face of impending doom.  I think he felt more sorry for himself, than for me, for having to go through all that mundane "hospital stuff"...  but that's another story all together!


At one point, I remember turning my head to the right and glancing ahead, over to the nurses' station.  One of the nurses who was assigned to me, was talking with a doctor.  I knew at that second that they were discussing my condition because the doctor kept listening, but turned her head in my direction, and we made eye contact.  It was approximately 2:00 A.M. by this time.


The doctor, Dr. Rekha Ganguly, was the hospital's Nephrologist.  She walked over to my bedside and said, "Ms. DeLorenzo, I'm Dr. Ganguly.  I came all the way from Huntington to help you"  
Huntington is a town in Long Island, New York, and about a one- hour drive to the hospital in Astoria, Queens.
"Your kidneys are not working...that's why you are feeling so sick".  Whether it's temporary or permanent, we don't know yet, but we will need to do 'emergency dialysis', or you won't survive the night".
I said something along the lines of "o.k."   


The only thought going through my mind was my son, Angelo.  I knew that I couldn't go yet.  It was too soon...Angelo would not be able to handle my passing, and it would adversely affect him for the rest of his life.


Dr. Ganguly called for a dialysis machine to be brought to the E.R. where I was.  When it arrived, it was time to get "hooked up" to it.  She actually did the procedure herself and didn't want any of the nurses to do it.  A catheter had to be inserted into an artery in my groin area...sans anesthesia.  She may have used a topical anesthetic, but it hurt like the devil...hahaha.  At the end part of the catheter were two separate tubings.  One part for the blood to come out of, and one part for the blood to be returned to the body.  In between coming out and going back in, the blood runs through a filter, which cleanses the blood.

Dialysis Catheter

Dr. Ganguly told me that there was a very small chance that when my blood ran through the filter, that I could have an allergic reaction to the plastic material the filter was made of, and I could go into anaphylactic shock and die.  At that point, nothing seemed too dangerous for me.  I just wanted the poison out of my system.  I had been in an almost-3-week state of zombie-ness and I just wanted to be normal again.


I must have fallen asleep during the dialysis treatment in the emergency room because the next thing I remember after that was waking up in a regular room in the hospital, still connected to the dialysis machine.  They must have taken me up to a room when it became available.  I was going in and out of dream-like states.  At times I saw blurry outlines of nurses coming in and out, and their voices sounded muffled, as if they were talking through tightly-fitted face masks.  


It was working though.  The dialysis treatment(s) were cleansing the toxins out of my blood and I was regaining mental clarity and physical "normality".  I remained in the hospital a little over 2 weeks, having dialysis treatments three times per week.  There was a slight possibility that my condition was temporary, and my doctor had hoped that after three or four dialysis treatments in the hospital, my kidneys would kick in and start functioning again.  This never happened, and I would need dialysis treatments three times a week for the rest of my life, or until I received a successful kidney transplant. 

Hemodialysis using a surgically-made access in the arm.

I was just so elated to be feeling good again, and to have the option of dialysis to keep me alive.  I guess you would say that the first year or so on dialysis was a "honeymoon phase".  All was well in the world and I made many new friends at the dialysis center where I went three times a week for treatment.  I became a patient representative and learned everything there was to learn about dialysis and how to remain healthy on dialysis while waiting for a transplant.


But of course, the honeymoon phase didn't last long.  Dialysis takes a horrible toll on the body, and I was on dialysis for 8 years until I received a transplant in 2006.  "Dialysis Hangover", or "Dialysis Washout" as it's called is the feeling after treatment.  Weakness, spikes or drops in blood pressure, dizziness, leg cramping are some of the symptoms of dialysis hangover.  A large amount of blood is out of the body at one time during dialysis and not only are toxins filtered out of the blood, but so are proteins, nutrients and electrolytes.  I will need to dedicate another post or two to "life on dialysis". 

Arrived one Halloween for my treatment, and tried to cheer up the other patients. 

After Notes:  
The dialysis I received that night, and for 8 years after that was "hemodialysis" ...where the blood is cleansed using an artificial filter, as in the picture above.  There also exists "peritoneal dialysis"...which uses the body's own peritoneal membrane, located in the abdomen, to remove impurities from the blood.  For the latter, a catheter first needs to be placed in the abdomen and this type of dialysis can be done at home.


My life-saver, Dr. Ganguly, who also ran the dialysis center where I received 8 years of treatment at, succumbed to cancer one year before I received my transplant.  It saddened me beyond belief, that it just wasn't possible for her to see how healthy and happy I became after the transplant...all because she insisted on excellence in running the center, and also because she made that drive from Huntington that night when she received that call.  She must have known, instinctively, that I was...dying to live.  : )  : )

Dying To Live - Part 1

In May of 1997, during a routine pre-operative blood test prior to knee surgery, I was told that my kidneys were only functioning at 8%.  I was shocked, sad, mad, and in denial all at once.  According to doctors, my kidneys must have been on a gradual function-decline over those past ten years due to either a strep-throat infection left untreated, or undetected high blood pressure, or both.  Although I had been feeling unusually tired in the weeks prior to my diagnosis, and also had some night-time leg cramps, there wasn't anything else that would lead me to believe I was a walking time-bomb.  


Doctors told me to keep in the back of my mind, the fact that I would be needing dialysis in the very near future.  My denial was fast and furious...lol.  I would have been "gone in sixty seconds", but I needed to stay to have the knee surgery, which was an emergency due to a fall I took, and not elective.  I came through the knee surgery, barely, and wasn't even given full dosage pain relief because my kidneys would not have been able to clear out the meds.  


After a few days, I regained enough strength to release myself - A.M.A.- Against Medical Advice - and hobbled my way out of the hospital.  During the next few months, I basically concentrated on regaining my knee's mobility and strength, and barely gave a thought to the impending doom of dialysis.  Going from two crutches, to one crutch, to cane, to nothing, took me the whole summer.  It would probably have taken six weeks for a normal person to recover.  I actually felt pretty good, for a dying person, and convinced myself that my diagnosis was wrong.  I mean, you see it on t.v. all the time.  I'm still amazed today, that a person can still go on with only 8% kidney function.  The human body is amazing.


A few months later, however, my life almost came to a slow, not screeching, halt.  I say "slow" because, at least in my case, I was ceasing to exist, little by little.  My knee doctor would later tell me that he wished, if he had to die of SOME disease, that it would be kidney failure, because you just kind of sleep and never wake up.  No pain.  Has anyone ever heard that a frog will let itself be boiled to death if the heat is turned up very slowly, in increments, and over a period of time?  It's true.  That's sort of kidney failure.  I WAS that frog.

It was right after Thanksgiving of 1997.  I just couldn't get out of bed...for like ten days to two weeks!  I had no energy and no appetite.  I hardly recognized myself in the mirror.  The face of kidney failure is horrible.  Monstrous.  Certain parts of the face swell, while other parts sink in.  The skin takes on a horridly pale hue, and other parts of the body develop spots.  Some red, some peeling.  Still no pain.  I thought I had the flu, but a flu without fever?


Then it happened.  I sat up to blow my nose, which was stuffy, but had nothing in it.  Blood started actually free-flowing out of both nostrils at an alarming pace.  Some of it liquid, some of it clumped up.  My son was the only one with me at the time, and he was only 10 years old.  I called a friend to come over to stay with him a while, then bring him to his dad's house.  I called 911, all awhile trying to plug up my nose with napkins, paper towels, gauze and cotton balls. 


When the EMT's arrived at my apartment, they stuck sticks, which I later learned were silver nitrate sticks, up my nostrils, which burnt like hell, to stop the bleeding.  Then they took my vitals and I went by ambulance to the Emergency Room of my local hospital.  My kidneys had totally shut down.  The bleeding was partly due to extremely high blood pressure brought on by kidney failure, and an extremely low platelet count, also caused by the kidney failure.  I was fading fast and needed immediate help.


Please stay tuned for Part 2...to find out how one particular doctor saved my life that night, and what I had to go through after that.

Taking These Morning, and Night = Life! Where Do I Sign Up?

Oh...wait, I'm already signed up!  Yes!  If anyone reading my posts has already had a kidney transplant, or any other kind of transplant, then you know that you will take medications for the rest of your life.  Take them, on schedule, every day and you greatly improve your chance of living!  Not a bad trade-off, I'd say.  This also holds true for anyone living with a chronic condition and taking daily medications.


Meet my cast of characters (pills) that keep me healthy and alive (see pic)...right eye, left eye and brown pupil are blood pressure meds...my docs like to keep my pressure especially low as not to damage my one and only functioning transplanted kidney;  upper and lower lips are the immunosuppressants.  My immune system has to be slightly suppressed because if it stayed at a normal level, it would consider my transplanted kidney a "foreign object" and  attack it;  the nose is a cholesterol lowering pill...one of the side-effects of the immunosuppressants is that they can increase cholesterol.  


Sure, each and every pill has its own side-effect.  Your doctor may have explained them to you, or you may have been reading those 3-page inserts your pharmacist, by law, must throw into the bag when you pick up your meds, or, WORSE yet...you may have looked up each pill you take, on-line.  If you're like me, and looked them up on line, you've probably scrolled down to the "Side Effects" section and checked off each one while you took mental notes that...that headache and nausea you had two nights ago MUST have been caused by the Prograf (immunosuppressant).  Of course, the Whopper washed down with the m.s.g.- laden hot & sour soup, couldn't have had anything to do with it!  Ha! 


Fact is, I experienced some moderate temple pain from time to time during the first couple of years after my transplant in January, 2006, which fell under the category of "neurological".  Nowadays I'm basically side-effect free, except for the occasional dizziness and tiredness.  Heck, I know people, younger than me, without medical problems who complain about being tired and dizzy!  


If you're having side-effects from your meds that are interfereing with your life, by all means tell your doc so that he/she can possibly change the dosage or substitute that particular med with another. 


I gladly take my meds every day, twice a day because I love life and have a lot to live for.  Remember, all meds are definitely best taken - with a positive outlook.  


Soon to be posted about...why my kidneys failed in the first place, and the horror that was "dialysis" a/k/a 7+ years in hell...so stay tuned...lol


Feel free to comment on your experience or ask a question.