"Spare Quiet Moments........"

In my last post I mentioned using my "spare quiet moments" to focus on the season.  And although I didn't specifically mention it, the last post's title implies that this is for stress management purposes.  Let me clarify that some.

Spiritual focus is not a "stress management technique."  It is, and always has been, simply a part of my day-to-day living.  Take that away, and I do get stressed. So being for so long in a situation where contemplative thinking is about as likely as going to the bathroom alone when you have a two toddlers, I have been stressed. Well, more stressed.  So I went on a hunt for those quiet spare moments, and was amazed at where quite a bunch of them were hanging out - right in front of the dialysis machine.

You see, when someone is setting up the machine, the door is closed so no one comes in without a mask on to contaminate the process.  And while parts of the procedure are delicate and require concentration, there's a lot of this:

Push a button.  The screen comes on eventually and says, "Welcome to your treatment."

The machine contemplates its navel for five minutes, during which time you pull out a 22 pound box of dialysis fluid, pick off the tape (NO SHARP OBJECTS per the dialysis team), and grab a wrapped cassette, pushing the odd button on the machine when it asks if the preset settings are okay ("Reject") and asking you to confirm the custom settings ("Okay!).  There is also time during this to fit in a full two minute hand wash, mask in place.

Two minutes is a long time to stand in front of a mirror washing your hands.  "Happy Birthday" takes thirty seconds.  The Alphabet song, about a minute.  But here is one of those lovely places where I can be contemplative.  The average Christmas carol far exceeds two minutes.  And I love to sing.

Once back in the room, the cassette is inserted, and you have to pull those eleven pound bags out, carefully ripping the plastic covering from each to expose the connection tubes.  The next screen advises:  "Connect bags to supply tubes and set up drain tube."  It doesn't take long, and then the machine goes into its own contemplation, all the while making various noises.  My favorite is the one that sounds like the doorbell on The Munsters.

The machine counts available fluid bags, flushes all the lines, and primes the patient tube, all with anywhere from one to three minute segments where I sit and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  The entire process takes about 15 minutes, and I need to be truly focused only on the machine for about 2 of those. And this is a nightly event, done solo, without even Babygirl in the room.  We go through a similar process in the morning, but it takes far less time and is far less complex (and the final screen is annoying:  "Have a nice day!").

So there I have it - a built-in no-escape time when I can take the hamster off the wheel in my brain, slow down, and remember why I'm here, and what all this is for.

I'll take it

DeeDee