If it's Saturday, and it's early in the morning, it must be a dialysis day. The dialysis experience is generally not too bad. I've mentioned before that anything that can leave me feeling as good as I do is worth a little inconvenience.
Last Saturday I had an experience I haven't had in quite some time. I got leg cramps during treatment. If any readers of this blog are dialysis patients, you have probably had this happen to you too. For me, the cramping is the worst part of the whole deal.
Most days my feet are the first to tighten up. This usually starts around 90 minutes to two hours in. I try to keep my feet and legs moving, to keep them loose, but by the time three hours are in, I have to ask to be turned off. It seems like I very rarely make it through a whole dialysis session without this happening.
As it turned out, last Thursday I was able to get through an entire session without asking to be turned off. A red letter day for sure, because the longer I can stay on, the better my chance of getting off all the fluid that I put on in between sessions.
Last Saturday, with Thursday's success fresh in my head, I was committed to staying on for the entire four hours. At 2 1/2 hours my feet started cramping. No sweat, I thought. I can tough it out. The cramps in the foot come and go, so I was trying to notice how far apart the cramps were happening. Finally, after 30 minutes of being tough, I realized the cramping wasn't letting up, so I asked to be shut off.
When the machine is turned off, the blood is still getting cleaned, so the transfer is still taking place. The only difference is that no fluid is getting removed. For me, this isn't terrible, because I don't come in to dialysis with a lot of fluid on in the first place.
So, about 10 minutes after being shut off, my left leg cramps. Fortunately, Judi, one of the terrific nurses at the clinic, was standing close by. She came over and pushed on my foot, which helped considerably. Of course, I know my leg cramps, and I knew it was just a matter of time before it moved. As long as it didn't move up my leg, I knew I would be able to get through this round of cramping.
Of course, at this time of morning, other patients are ready to come off and go home, so it wasn't going to work having Judi continue to stand by me and push on my foot. So, when she went to take another patient off, I pounded my fist into the arm rests every time my cramp reminded me who was in charge. And then the fun started.
I could feel my face getting warm. Not a good sign. I've passed out twice at dialysis, back in my first few weeks of treatment. Each time, the warm face thing was part of the lead-in to passing out. Judi was with someone next to me, so I told her I was feeling warm. That's when she noticed my blood pressure had dropped to 98/65, another sign that I wasn't doing too good.
Even though I had about 15 minutes left to go for my four hours, Judi decided it was time to take me off, get my blood returned, and put an end to this before I went out. All of this business happened over 10 or 15 minutes, but when you can't stand up or do anything to stop the cramping, the time feels like an eternity. I was happy to hear they were taking me off early.
Once they had me off, my blood pressure bounced right back up, so that was a big plus. I was able to stand up and put some weight on my cramp, and that helped too. The cramp went away, but I could feel the knot in my leg. The knot stayed with me for the rest of the day, serving as a reminder that next time I had better ask to be turned off with the first foot cramp. It was a reminder that still resonates this morning as I write this.
My left foot is getting that feeling, as if it's ready to cramp. So far, it's just been teasing me with cramping, but as soon as it starts getting serious, I'm going to be calling out around the world, because there will be cramping in the streets.
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