Andy Hallett
Dead of congestive heart failure at age friggin 33.
Best known as good-hearted charismatic karaoke-singing demon Lorne on TV’s Angel.
That’s me as Lorne, Halloween 2003.
Congestive heart failure sucks. 33? Geez…
Archive for March, 2009
D-Day Looming
I came down with a case of the chills earlier. It’s 70 degrees in my house, so a thermostat adjustment wasn’t going to help. I wrapped myself in blankets and waited for a little while, but any pulling back of the blankets brought on another shivering attack. I took a couple of magic painkillers. That seems to have done the trick.
The last time I remember shivering like this was February last year when my kidney function nosedived due to a kidney stone blockage. I don’t have the pain associated with a kidney stone. I only have the minor flank pain and joint aches that I’m used to. But it’s an abrupt reminder that I can’t avoid dialysis for much longer.
A couple of weeks ago, it seemed I’d probably be headed towards dialysis sometime in April, after having felt completely sapped of energy almost nonstop. Normally, people start dialysis after feeling a bit sicker–symptoms like nausea and headaches in addition to the fatigue. But the numbers that measure renal function have been consistently bordering the range at which people start dialysis, so my doctor told me I should start giving it serious thought. I had a day or two when I felt slightly better, though, and I’ll seize upon anything that gives me reason to postpone the inevitable.
I’ve long dreaded the start of dialysis. For years, I’ve seen dialysis at The End of a chance to build a meaningful, productive life. I realize this sounds overly dramatic, but it probably comes as little surprise to those who know me that I feel like I’m basically failed to find contentment in my life. I have struggled to achieve simple goals that I’ve had, and I’ve always looked at dialysis as a period in my life where survival would be the only goal I’d have the energy to focus on.
I could be wrong (and I do hope I am wrong), but I don’t think people on dialysis date or enjoy anything resembling an active social life. People on dialysis don’t have career breakthroughs or flourish in a hobby or follow a rejuvenating exercise regimen. People just survive. They try to muster the energy to go to work and walk their dogs and pay their bills. They put their life on hiatus until they day comes, they hope, when they’ll receive a kidney transplant. That day could be six or seven years down the road.
The day I get a transplant could be much sooner, but I’ll need to find a living donor. As I’ve said before, I don’t have much of a strategy for doing this. The odds aren’t so good. According to the National Kidney Foundation (via this thoughtful essay on finding a donor), there are 485,000 Americans with end stage renal disease, but, in 2007, there were only 16,629 kidney transplants. When I see those statistics…I don’t know what to say…I’m certainly not an optimistic person by nature so…
So as not to be a complete downer, here’s the requisite pet-picture-with-glum-post…
Crouton du Jour No. 42
Not the Nikki French version. Just a French version.
March Madness
I saw Duke beat Texas on Saturday night in Greensboro.
I saw some saxifrage Sunday afternoon by the Eno.
Someone told me it was saxifrage. Otherwise, I’d have no clue.
Fantesca
The perfect fruity caffeine-free blend of sugar and aspartame.
1 part Fresca
1 part Grape Fanta
Ironic Insomnia
I can’t sleep. I’ve got this blog I don’t write a whole lot in anymore. I’ve got these thoughts just spinning around in my head. The solution, however imperfect, is this…
Over the last couple of weeks, and especially over the last few days, I’ve been overcome with fatigue more than I am used to. I’ve been tired for years, for as long as I can remember, and I will not attempt to describe what that has been like now. This recent onset of symptoms has been more acute. I feel “bone” tired. I have instances of dizziness and vertigo. My limbs seem to fall asleep more readily than they should. My joints all feel tight. But I haven’t felt especially ill. I’m not getting headaches or stomach aches or fevers. I’ve just been really tired.
I’d be sure it must be time for dialysis if not for my latest bloodwork, which showed my levels essentially where they’ve been for the last few months–not quite what necessitates dialysis. I haven’t heard back from my doctor yet, although I haven’t tried until today to get some sort of dialogue going. General fatigue can be do to a million things, not necessarily attributable to my kidneys failing.
It would sure be nice if there was someone in the medical profession whom I truly trusted. I do not have a primary care physician, having been greatly disappointed by those I have tried to use over the last few years. I keep meaning to schedule an appointment with someone new, but no one who’s any good and practices close to where I live ever seems to have available appointments. So I rely on my nephrologist to be a primary care physician, and he really can’t function in that role.
So I’ve had this fatigue, and today it was bad enough to keep me at home and out of work. I don’t feel any better rested, and now I am stuck awake unable to get to sleep. No doubt I will be exhausted after the 4-5 hours I might manage to get and proceed to feel lousy at work, after which I may promptly take a long nap, and then find myself right back in this predicament, awake at 3AM.
I Got Nothin’
Two of my favorite daily blog reads, Barry’s locally-grown Dependable Erection and ex-CNN-producer Chez’s NYC-based Deus Ex Malcontent have been on hiatus of late.
For my part (and not to claim that I have anywhere near the wit and insight of those two blogs), I’ve got nothing to say here.
I don’t trust that I have anything penetrating to say about politics or the state of the world or pop culture.
I’m not going to write about my health everyday. I realize I’m not the only person in the world who’s sick, and sometimes I’m ashamed that I, at all, call attention to my infirmities.
I have no cryptic toastchees or croutons. I say “cryptic” because the videos are usually about four or five threads removed from what I’m really thinking about.
I’ve been too lazy to find the good camera batteries for my camera so I can even take decent pictures of my pets; thus I post camera pics and webcam pics…and just so there is something mildly amusing up on here.
I’ve got a lot on my mind but nothing for here.
North Carolina: Purple State
This afternoon, I dumped a few items at the Whole Foods on Broad Street for the “first-Saturday-of-the-month recycle anything” day. (This was the last one of these, I was told). Lots of broken-down items and materials were dumped in the bins and trailers.
Later, I went to the flea market at the state fairgrounds. I didn’t see anyone from the Whole Foods. In fact, I didn’t spot one Prius or Volkswagen in the fairgrounds parking lot. And at the flea market, I saw much of the same junk that the Whole Foodsers had been disposing of, except it all had price tags attached.
It really is stark, the difference in the crowds at a Triangle Whole Foods versus the fairgrounds flea market. I think I’m usually thinking of the Whole Foods crowd when I tell someone who lives in the Northeast that I don’t really live in what they think of us at “The South”.
Anyway, it had been many years since I had been to the flea market. Last time I was there, people were selling puppies. That appears to have stopped. There’s some progress.
I did buy something at the flea market…soup.
I bought soup from Maine at the flea market…and I think it costs more than any soup you’d get at Whole Foods.
