It turns out, according to DaVita.com, an amazing website I have just come across, that I am on the wrong type of dialysis. I took their quiz to find out which type of treatment would suit me best; it was a closely fought battle between home haemo and peritoneal dialysis (PD) and they were neck and neck right up to Question 13, when I got screwed.
"Would you like to do dialysis with blood and needles OR would you like to do dialysis WITHOUT blood and needles?"
I answered truthfully: I clicked without, but I don't think this was what question 13 was getting at. Question 14 was even more leading:
"Would you like to do dialysis through a vascular access in your arm OR would you like to do dialysis through a catheter in your abdomen?"
Question 14 is the whole ball-game really - the good people at DaVita could have wholly dispensed with the rest of the quiz. It doesn't matter whether you'd prefer to watch kittens play with yarn whilst you dialyse or to receive it through oral sex; if you want to have treatment through a fistula, it's haemo for you, son. The only other legitimate query was whether you'd rather to do it at home or in hospital and I have helpfully devised a snappy question I think would do the job:
"Would you rather dialyse on your own comfortable bed whilst eating Ritz crackers, watching illegally downloaded episodes of The OC online and browsing the Daily Mail website OR would you rather dialyse in a restrictive, crowded, sterile hospital to a soundtrack of bitching, snoring and phlegm-hocking, whilst comfort-eating Digestives because they are free and there, and end up hating yourself a bit?"
The quiz isn't even the best bit of the site. I had hoped it might be the Careers section, but that amounted to advice on how to tackle anemia ("1. Ask your doctor to check if you have anemia; 2. Get your doctor to give you some medication for anemia") because apparently being too tired to sit up isn't conducive to getting a job. No, the BEST link on DaVita.com leads to the Kidney-Friendly Recipes. Should I be so inclined, I could soon be enjoying any one of, but by no means limited to, these delicious sounding dishes:
The site is American, of course, because they all are - Americans are far more predisposed to helping their renally challenged than us Brits, who'd rather we all went to live in an asylum in the country and stopped pestering everyone for their kidneys. This means that a lot of the ingredients are only available in Wal-Mart, or in industrial quantities, so alas some of the recipes might be a stretch even for me, known as I am for my calamitous kitchen creations. Plus as a lapsed anorexic, I don't like to veer too far off my well-trodden culinary path of tuna salad/stir-fry/sandwiches...I'll save the Vanilla Lasagne for a special occasion.
"Would you like to do dialysis with blood and needles OR would you like to do dialysis WITHOUT blood and needles?"
I answered truthfully: I clicked without, but I don't think this was what question 13 was getting at. Question 14 was even more leading:
"Would you like to do dialysis through a vascular access in your arm OR would you like to do dialysis through a catheter in your abdomen?"
Question 14 is the whole ball-game really - the good people at DaVita could have wholly dispensed with the rest of the quiz. It doesn't matter whether you'd prefer to watch kittens play with yarn whilst you dialyse or to receive it through oral sex; if you want to have treatment through a fistula, it's haemo for you, son. The only other legitimate query was whether you'd rather to do it at home or in hospital and I have helpfully devised a snappy question I think would do the job:
"Would you rather dialyse on your own comfortable bed whilst eating Ritz crackers, watching illegally downloaded episodes of The OC online and browsing the Daily Mail website OR would you rather dialyse in a restrictive, crowded, sterile hospital to a soundtrack of bitching, snoring and phlegm-hocking, whilst comfort-eating Digestives because they are free and there, and end up hating yourself a bit?"
The quiz isn't even the best bit of the site. I had hoped it might be the Careers section, but that amounted to advice on how to tackle anemia ("1. Ask your doctor to check if you have anemia; 2. Get your doctor to give you some medication for anemia") because apparently being too tired to sit up isn't conducive to getting a job. No, the BEST link on DaVita.com leads to the Kidney-Friendly Recipes. Should I be so inclined, I could soon be enjoying any one of, but by no means limited to, these delicious sounding dishes:
- Breakfast Casserole
- Egg in a hole
- Grandpa Joe's Meatloaf
- Tender London Broil
- Dirty Rice
- It's-better-than Potato salad
- Turkey Giblet Stock
- Bone cookies
- Glistening Frog Eye Salad
- Vanilla Lasagne
- Are you kidding me Artichoke Dip (this one is no arti-joke, clearly)
- Lumpia
- Almost Mashed Potatoes
- Slow-cooker Jellied Carrots
- Chicken Pasta...with Brussels Sprouts
and perhaps my personal favourite: Shake 'n' Bake Chicken Extravaganza!
I was temporarily alarmed at the recipe for Agent Orange Chicken but it turned out to be ASAIN Orange Chicken, which sounds eminently more palatable.
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| Jellied carrot, anyone? |
Here is the link to the site for any of you who wish to discern what method of dialysis would best meet your needs, or for those of you think I've made the whole thing up:
Enjoy.
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