Kidney Transplant Post Op Diary, Year 1, Episode 4: Routine, Routine by Ron Steinman
“Without routine, chaos is sure to follow.”
Having a routine is part of life. Life without routine is, well, lifeless. We need only to know it by having a routine, or more than one viable routine that completes the life we live. Routine is the catchword for how a person repeats the elements of life so the life we lead makes sense. To live a life that makes sense, makes life full. For me, my routines were mostly good and welcome. Dialysis, followed by my kidney transplant, defined my routines then, and now will well into the future. Today, without dialysis and the end of what has been a significant routine, I am still working to define my new routines.
For most of my life, as with you I am sure, I have had a series of changing routines, some major, some minor, all constituting part of how I lived. With all of the routines I have had, my life continued to advance for good or ill. Despite all the surgeries I had in my life, I consider myself fortunate. How I felt hour by hour often depended on my mood, the weather, my love life, my professional life, my diet, my dog, even my parents, and the bar I sometimes frequented, especially when on the road. Often, the routine I was following, even after it changed, as routines do, stayed with me as I made my way in the world. It was as if the routine whispered to me you are not getting rid of me so fast. I will linger in your life as long as I can. You need me. Learn to live with what I offer. If an event or unusual happening upended my then current routine, its replacement sometimes proved better for me. If nothing else whatever routine I was operating under served my life best during a period of change, though when it did not comply with my wishes, it caused something of a cacophony inside my head,
Routines are like that, they linger, they remain hidden until they become normal, they work their magic as saviors – especially when they are beneficial. If I do not comply with their demands, the results can be dire. Also consider that as many of you, I probably have sub-routines that I roll into and out of my main routines, though when analyzed, I see that I am occasionally dealing with many routines, most of which cannot exist alone. Nor should they.
Consider this diary entry the story of some new routines I now have because of my recent kidney transplant. No doubt probably all of which I will gladly follow the rest of my life.
My previous way of life for more than two years was my trip to the treatment center for my thrice weekly dialysis. It dominated everything I did. It dominated everything my partner did. It was the same Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Up early, breakfast (a bagel or roll, maybe toast, cheese, butter and black coffee,) I did forty minutes of hard pedaling on my big stationary bike, had my shower, read The Times, got dressed, had a light lunch and rushed more than two blocks to either wait for or catch a bus that dropped me off a bit more than three blocks from the center. I had become so regular on one of the two buses I rode three days a week, that the drivers, or operators as they preferred, knew me well enough to say good morning and even ask how I was doing. Many of the same people got on and off the bus the same time and same place daily. Rain, snow or shine, those few blocks that led where I had dialysis may have been the most important during that period of my life.
I entered the building in the back, rode a freight elevator to the fourth floor, checked in, hung up my clothes, weighed myself, washed, found my chair, and I settled in waiting for the tech to come by and insert two needles into the graft in my left arm. Then I watched the dialysis start, opened my book and mostly read for the next three and half hours. My routine continued well past the treatment. After it ended I dressed, weighed myself again for the required medical record, gave the tech my vitals, got dressed, went to the bathroom and walked to the bus for the ride home, dinner, time with my computer, some writing and to watch, I hoped, a good British police procedural on TV, followed by bed until the next day when I repeated everything from the day before.
My only joy was the many books I read while being dialyzed. I have been a big reader all my life, starting at a very early pre-kindergarten age when I read in earnest everything in print. Dialysis afforded me the opportunity to read even more freely than I did in the past. With more than ten hours a week on the chair with nothing else for me to do, and my aversion to daytime TV, (every chair had its own TV set) I read more than usual. Though the chair allowed me to sit up or lie flat, I preferred sitting up. The books I read had to be easy to hold, usually quality paperbacks and under 400 pages. I read mostly history, philosophy, current affairs, politics, criticism, and literature. I rarely read fiction because I found it boring and too similar book to book. Though I did not like how Amazon controlled the book world, it became my bookstore. Its stock and delivery time, usually just a few days was hard to beat.
There was one important exception to my new life, an even newer kind of life. Covid-19 dominated everything much of my time in dialysis, which is another story and one I am not going to relate here. My experience shared by almost everyone else was not unique so I will let others tell that tale. My only note is that once the pandemic struck, the center wisely distributed face masks which we wore during our treatment and everywhere else as we went about our lives.
After the transplant my life is no longer the same. I am free of dialysis but I still rise early as I have always done because I sleep poorly. I make a small pot of coffee and only drink the two cups I am allowed. It is no secret that with an organ transplant there are restrictions. I stay away from butter and limit my cheese intake to a couple of ounces a week. I miss good gourmet cheese. I have to drink about a liter of water every day. I have a light lunch. Because I have much more time I write my various diaries. I try to find an idea for the History News Network which graciously takes most of my submissions. In my former free time when I did not use to watch much TV unless there was a major event enfolding, I now watch more TV at night, usually a streaming series or a movie.
The other days, my off days and especially weekends, were different. Mostly they were the time when I played catch-up with my life, with Eileen, and sometimes a dinner out before the Covid pandemic locked us inside or allowed us to have a meal outside in a new, decorative shed. I still read. I seek ways to fill my time and have come to understand filling my time is easy, complicated, and hard to clearly define. Of course, my desire for normalcy, whatever that was during the pandemic, ruled my life.
Then I had my kidney transplant, probably the major event of my life. It changed me in many and unexpected ways for the better. After surgery on April 13, I am still getting used to my new routines. I feel lighter, if you can imagine, physically and psychologically. I still sleep badly but I do not believe that will ever change. I read voraciously, as if I might run out of time, which I surely will, before I can read everything ever written. I eat well. I work out daily. I enjoy my time with Eileen. I miss my grandchildren because of the pandemic. A big advantage now is that I allow myself to nap, sometimes at will. I usually feel rested during the day.
Mainly I no longer have to hurry to get anything done. Speed is unimportant. Deadlines, the way I used to live, are in my past. I move at my pace, mine alone. Time is no longer my enemy but it is my friend. I move ahead one or more steps at a time at the tempo I want and that is only dictated by how I now live my life.
RonSteinman's Notebooks 