On Presidents’ Day, 21 February 2000, I went back to Saint Joseph’s to have a catheter installed and I had my first hemodialysis treatment. All of the healthcare professionals had been adamantly telling me that I’d feel better than I’d felt in years as soon as I started dialysis. It was a lie. I felt worse. I still wanted to die. Now the party line was that I had been ill for so long that I didn’t know what feeling good felt like. Right. I was so weak I had to take two breaks going up the stairs in my home and I couldn’t even hold my head up for more than a minute or two.
Three days later I had my first in-center hemodialysis run at the Roseville Dialysis Center. It was a nightmare. My wife, Karen, and our good friend, Cathy, a nurse practitioner went with me. The dialysis center was filthy and I found out later that the clinical director had only six months experience. The charge nurse used to work in the state prison and treated patients, as best I could tell, like inmates. Patients, inmates, they were all the same. I didn’t want to be coddled, but I certainly expected to be treated like a human being. I introduced my wife and friend upon arrival but was asked repeatedly if I was married and whom they should notify if I had problems during the procedure. When asked, “What do you want us to do if your heart stops?” the only answer I could muster was, “Well, do you think you could restart it?”
