This is a photo I took of my belly 10 days post-surgery. The swelling has gone down considerably since then, but the bandages and tubing are quite similar.
At the upper edge of the photo is the PD belt, an elastic band that goes about my waist into which I can insert the transfer set (the end of the tube that gets hooked up to the dialysis machine). This keeps the transfer set from dangling and thereby prevents it from getting snagged, pulled, or dirtied.
The warning sign on the post-surgery dressing has been removed. The message shown on this photo says that only a PD nurse can touch the dressing, with numbers at which the on-call nurse can be reached.
But otherwise, this is it, folks.
Perhaps this is how someone who grew a third arm or leg while sleeping might feel. She wakes up in the morning, and there it is--another appendage! It's still all so strange and even a bit creepy.
I have to touch my belly to wash it with antibacterial soap, dab it with peroxide, and douse it with special cream every day, but otherwise, I don't touch it. I used to lie in bed at night and rub my belly. I was so pleased with its shape, its tautness, its size that was smaller than most women's my age, for sure. I really liked my belly.
Recently I noticed the tubing under the skin. Not just at the exit site, but several places, as if a foot or more of tubing is coursing its way just under the surface.
This marks a completely new stage of my life. Before, I slept alone every night, but I sure looked like someone who should be sleeping with someone. Nobody was with me, but damn if I didn't look like a woman who should be having great sex every night! Every once in a while, I would stand before a floor-length mirror in just my skivvies and smile, thinking of what I would love to have a lover doing with me.
But now when I do look in the mirror, I look from the breasts up.
It's just really difficult to accept that from now on until the day I die, there is so little hope of a relationship. If no one of interest to me was interested before, why in the hell would someone be interested now!
And it's not just the PD paraphernalia either. It's the insulin pump, shown here in the black case I can slip it into and then clip to my belt or the top of my skirt. Otherwise, I stuff it into a baby sock and nestle it in my underwear.
At least with the insulin pump, I could remove it if I didn't want a "date" to see it. The site is changed every three days anyway, so I could just remove the infusion site, the tubing, and the pump for the duration of the "date." My blood sugar would be a little high afterward, as I wouldn't be receiving the 20-times-an-hour mini-infusions of insulin, but I could correct for that by giving myself a bolus post-date.
But there's no removing the catheter. It's lodged into my mid-section and would require an extreme yank to free it. Just thinking of this gives me a shiver.
So all of this is why I wonder, Even if someone were interested in approaching me, however could he manage that?
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