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?”
The dialysis procedure is relatively straightforward. My kidneys can no longer filter the toxins nor remove the fluid from my bloodstream. I am connected to the dialysis machine, about the size of a small refrigerator, three times a week for three-and-a-half hours. The machine removes my blood, runs it through an artificial filter, and returns it to my body. Ordinarily my dialysis runs process just under 100 liters of my blood. It’s usually not a painful process, but there’s lots that can go wrong. Because the process involves needles and lots of blood, there’s a not insignificant risk of HIV, hepatitis, and the other usual blood-borne suspects.
Two days after my Nightmare Dialysis Run, 26 February 2000, I was scheduled for my second run at the Roseville Dialysis Unit. I went to the window to check-in. Right next to the sign stapled to the wall indicating that firearms were forbidden in the Roseville Dialysis Center. “I’m Mike Fraase and I’m here for my appointment,” I told the charge nurse. “With who?” came the response. “My scheduled dialysis run,” I replied. “I don’t think so,” he volleyed back in an exceptionally sarcastic tone. “Okay,” I mumbled and walked back to the car. Karen was white. “They said you’d die if you didn’t have dialysis,” she said in a quiet, shaken voice. “I’ll die before I go back there. I went for quite a while without dialysis after my diagnosis, so I don’t think it’ll kill me to miss a few more runs.” Truth was, I was scared. I didn’t know what would happen but I knew our friend Cathy would.
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