So, That's What a Hernia Feels Like..!

A big, heartfelt, humble, and wholly insufficient Thank You to Jason for his continuing efforts to be a living donor.

As we wait on the results from the antigen testing, I'd like to update everyone on how I'm doing. 

Basically, I'm pretty good. I'm hopeful and in generally good spirits. This is an improvement on my dampened mood a couple of months ago, when I unfortunately developed a small umbilical hernia. This and other kinds of hernias are a common complication of PD, because of all the dialysis liquid that your abdomen is filled with. In my case, my PD program consisted of filling my abdomen with 1.5 L of dialysis solution several times overnight, and once in the morning to dwell in my body for 8-12 hours during the day. Essentially, I had a lot of liquid in me for 24 hours a day. With that kind of pressure against my abdominal walls, it helped to cause a bulge through the weakened muscle near the belly button. 

When it hurt, it felt like an inner soreness focused near my navel, a little like getting kicked in the balls. Anyway, it wasn't fun, and I had to pop some Tylenols. This hernia, along with my New Year's infection, were a nice two-fer of discomfort.

Thankfully, the infection eventually cleared up after taking the antibiotics. And, now that I've been sure to not lift overly-heavy things, and my doctor has stopped the daytime dwells, it's helped tremendously with reducing the number of pain episodes.

The absence of daytime dwells haven't hurt my numbers when it comes to dialysis. I am still sufficiently removing toxins from my system, but as an unexpected bonus, I don't feel as bloated in the daytime.

Overall, I'm just grateful for a less painful and pretty normal daily life.

Here are a couple recent sketchbook entries. They depict the three Js -- the cats Jerry and Jupiter, and the human John, my nurse from Satellite Wellbound.