Family, Friends and Food

I know I haven't written in a week but I have just been simply too busy with family, friends, and food (too much food) this week. I was barely able to squeeze in dialysis, but I did. Tuesday's dialysis in Oklahoma City was pretty uneventful and went smoothly. They got me below my dry weight and I felt great. The people at the center were very professional and very nice. Right after dialysis we met family Gabriel didn't even know he had until recently, the daughter and granddaughter of his cousin Valerie in Cincinnati. We met them for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant in Oklahoma City (it seems everything we do revolves around food), and they were wonderful people and I really enjoyed meeting them. We drove that night after dinner for a couple of hours and spent the night in Sallisaw, OK, which has 9,000 people and 29 churches, our first notch in the Bible Belt. One night later we were in Memphis, where we had to wake up at 4:30AM to get to dialysis on Thursday, my birthday. Memphis was not my favorite city, the dialysis unit however was a very pleasant atmosphere, again an uneventful treatment. I slept through most of it including when they delivered flowers sent by my daughters and signed by my grandsons Eric, Ethan, and Nate. A pleasant surprise and a beautiful bouquet. Right after dialysis we had a great barbecue lunch at Corky's in Memphis, where we also ate dinner the night before. It was the first time I had dry-rubbed ribs, and they were the best. That afternoon we drove to Nashville, which I really liked. We parked in front of the Ryman Auditorium, once the home of the Grand Ole Opry, and yes, Neil Young performed there too. I loved Nashville, the vibrancy, the party atmosphere that it supplied, a musician everywhere you walked, carrying a guitar case. We enjoyed driving around the city and getting a feel for it, a feeling of welcoming comfort. The next day we got to Cincinnati and finally met Gabriel's cousin Valerie. What a sweetheart! We hit it off immediately. If she weren't family we'd instantly be friends, I could tell. She fixed us the most wonderful home-cooked meal that tasted better than anything I'd eaten in a week. It was so much fun that we stayed up talking until well after midnight even though we had to get up at 5:30 to get to dialysis, my last dialysis treatment on the road. I hated waking her up in the morning to say goodbye, but she insisted. It was goodbye but not forever. We'll be in touch and visiting each other again. My last dialysis treatment Saturday morning in Cincinnati was -- I hate to sound like a broken record -- uneventful. I want people to know that the entire dialysis experience on this trip went smoothly. A couple of minor glitches but nothing that couldn't be dealt with, and I would encourage anybody on dialysis to travel. Don't be afraid. It requires planning, yes, but it can be done. We've proved it!