The Ballad of Billy The Kidney

Time flies: web 2.0 and the Fully Sick Rapper

One thing that dialysis patients have to come to terms with is how to profitably spend their many hours of enforced inactivity without going crazy.

My tactic, initially at least (before I switched to overnight dialysis), was to read a lot, listen to lots of music and watch some (but not too much) television.

This was in the days of pre-broadband internet, and certainly before Web 2.0 - so the internet actually did not figure in my plans.

Now that wireless broadband is commonplace, many people make use of this in one form or another.

Indeed, my friend and peer Miriam Lippel Blum, describes what it is like to be suddenly cut off from this option:

Friday, July 2, 2010 3:22 PM, PDT ...our whole neighborhood was incommunicado due to the accidental cutting of a major phone cable nearby by some construction workers.  It was very annoying to not have the internet available to me during those long dialysis hours.  I thought I would lose my mind! Yes, I confess, I am a child of the technological age,  I love my computer and miss it when it's not working.

This brings me to introduce one man's very inventive method of whiling away long hours.  This was not in a dialysis context, but was rather a extreme context that is very noteworthy.

Christiaan Van Vuuren (pictured above, on the right) was recently released from Sydney Hospital after being quarantined there for six months - yes, six months - following exposure to tuberculosis.

How did he entertain himself? by setting up an online persona called The Fully Sick Rapper - complete with YouTube channel, Facebook page and Twitter feed.

He entertained himself, fellow patients, hospital staff and thousands of people across the globe by producing assorted raps, rants, and observations.

In doing this, he also raises money for support of childhood vaccinations.

Now that he has been granted parole, he is hoping to use this body of work to gain entry into the entertainment or social media industries.

In reading about this gentleman, I was particularly impressed by the virtual dates he organised with assorted lady friends. He would dress up, his date would dress up at the other end of the webcam, and they would sit down to a meal shared across cyberspace.

Of course, not everyone would have the energy or the chutzpah or the technical ability to do this.

But it certainly demonstrates one method of whiling away the hours!

• Picture credit: from the Fully Sick Rapper's Facebook page
• YouTube clip from Fully Sick Rapper's channel
  

The top of the Season to you!

On behalf of my lovely wife and I, may we wish all our readers - casual and regular - a very happy fetive and holiday season.

And this applies whether you are just exiting Hannukah or entering Christmas. Or indeed, if you are
supporting Cosmo Kramer's support of the holiday of Festivus ("Festivus for the rest of us!").

The top of the Season to you, folks!

• The image of Father Christmas riding a surfboard was originally uploaded by jpikulski on photobucket
• The image of Michael Richards as Cosmo Kramer is reproduced from witz.org
  

Career change has its downs as well as its ups

In this blog I have written of the positive challenge involved in changing careers as a result of health issues.

This is by no means an easy thing, but it is a positive thing.  And it can be done.  I did it from the age of 45.  Thérèse Rein's dad did it as a paraplegic in an era before accessibility and equal opportunity were widely understood.

Its a great thing. And it has its bonuses - such as the college excursions (field trips) that I have been fortunate to organise.

Unfortunately its got its down sides too - such as being buried in end-of-term marking and assessments, such as I am at the moment.

This has swamped me to such an extent that I have been unable to come up with a post this week.  So I have to ask my readers to indulge me and forgive me as I pass on a meaningful post this week.

In the meantime, here are some irrelevant but personally-favoured YouTube posts to waste your time and bandwidth.

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Better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick!

I am grateful to Miriam Lippel Blum, editor of the CKD Blog Report, for this citation to a journal article about the role of humour in recovery in renal patients.

SVEBAK Sven; KRISTOFFERSEN Bjørn; AASARØD Knut

Sense of humor and survival among a county cohort of patients with end-stage renal failure : A two-year prospective study

As of this publishing, I have not read the article yet - but hope to before my borrowing rights at the university library run out.  Will report back if successful.

This reminds me of what I used to tell people about an heriditary disease even more frightening than that which was causing my kidney problems.

What could be worse than what I had, they'd respond, what with the dislysis, sticking EPO injections into my leg, and so on.

Then I would tell them:

BALDNESS!

(Cue scary background music)

At this point, my conversation companion would inevitably be retreating out of the room whilst facing me.

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Image credits:

• The image  of the Clown Doctors is from the website of The Clown Doctors

• The image of Elmer Fudd is from the website Smasher.net

Jelly beans herald Kidney Health Week

Kidney Health Australia has released a very interesting and rather cute video advertisement to mark the beginning of Kidney Health Week tomorrow.

Which jelly bean are you?

:

• Kidney Health Australia's media release follows.
• Kidney Health Australia's page on this campaign.

• Image credit:  NineMSN

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Quick, nurse! The screens!

A new featured (via RSS) blog on the lower right-hand side of this page is donorcycle.  This highlights the unique perspectives of a transplant co-ordinator - the person with just about the toughest job in the world.

One post in particular made me laugh - the one about having to actually use the loo once you have a new kidney.

This prompted several lung recipients to comment on how their first post-transplant sneeze felt like the take-off blast of a 747.

One well-meaning but highly ignorant person at my final job in my former career (pre-transplant) attempted to console me one day (not that I was particularly down, as I recall) by saying, "well never mind John, think of all that time you save not having to use the loo."

(This wasn't true anyway.  Apart from the 27 hours per week I would put into dialysis and further 9 to 20 or more hours per week on related duties - machine set-up, machine stripping and cleaning, stocktake and ordering consumables, going to doctors, and so on - I was still producing about 600mL of wee each day even at my worst stage of the illness.  Not enough to sustain life without dialysis but enough to let me drink 800mL of water per day, or even - gosh! - 1 litre on hot days.  And this is before)

On a tangent, another even-more-ignorant person asked me one day if the many bottles of dialysate I had delivered to work for my home dialysis machine were in fact my blood being returned after being cleaned. 

And he was serious. Just imagine - dislysis by distance delivery.

I mention this as examples of the incredibly ignorant and unthinking things some people might say to you. 

But don't worry!  My response was to use my famous/infamous  sense of humour to speak darkly of a far worse genetic disorder especially prevalent amongst males and that I do not have and that I would not wish upon my worst enemy.

"What's that?", would be the anguished response (especially from a fellow bloke).

"Baldness," I would reply.

• The picture at the top of this post is from DayLife.
• The picture of a Boeing 747 Long-Range Jetliner is from Aerospaceweb.org
• Disclaimer

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POSTSCRIPT -15th September 2008:  As usual I made a mistake in the maths above relating to my daily fluid ration.  (A teacher in my primary school years said I couldn't do maths to save my life, and lo!  She's almost correct!)  I make another attempt below.  If you are interested (and subject to the disclaimer) you are welcome to click on...

The perks of being over 50

In this City2Surf year i have reflected a bit on attaining the Big 5 - Oh.

These thoughts met an unexpected but very welcome counterpoint when i received this email from our friend Barbara in San Francisco.

Its on that very subject - The Big 5 - Oh!

The picture of Mr Magoo at the top of this post is from Joe Hill Fiction.