the jinx

When I first got married my wife and I had a few hobbies. With no kids and a few pets we spent a good deal of time (and money) on tropical fish. It was a fun hobby, we had 3 tanks. A 20 gallon in the bedroom, a 44 pentangular in the dining room and a 55 gallon in the living room which was reserved for aggressive tropicals such as the Oscar or the Red Devil. That tank was beautiful.
And expensive. Not just the equipment, the fish also.
It sucked when they died.

My wife and I had a running joke. Don’t ever say “gee, the tanks are doing well. We haven’t lost a fish in a while”. Whenever we did we found a floater the next day. Not one to believe in jinxes, it was there just the same.
Apparently, it applies to hospital visits also.

2 weeks ago I remarked proudly to my girl that I haven’t been hospitalized in 2 years. This is significant because dialysis patients typically get hospitalized at least once a year and I was happy that I was an exception to the rule. The next day I went to the ER.

I hadn’t felt well for a while. My energy was way down, my stomach was doing backflips and I was fatigued way beyond the usual. I feared that I had passed the wonderful phase (the whole time I’ve been on dialysis) of feeling good despite the thrice weekly beat down on my body. I was preparing myself for the possibility that I was finally at the stage where I had to resign myself to feeling lousy all the time. But that night was excessive. After barely being able to climb my stairs I went to get checked out.
4 hours later I was being transported by ambulance to another hospital. I had excessive fluid in my lungs and a fairly large sac of fluid around my heart. I was there for a week.

The good news is that they were able to get some of the fluid. The bad news is that to get all of it they would have to stick a needle into my heart and drain it. A very risky surgery. So I have to live with it. As for the stomach, I was diagnosed with a bacterial infection which is very treatable by antibiotics.

I feel great today but it’s been a hard road back. I’m pushing myself everyday to be active and try to regain some of that strength and energy. I think I have my mojo, finally, and I’m going to run with it.

One lesson from this is that regardless of whether I believe in jinxes or not, I am going to be very careful what I say it loud.

Then again, that’s good advice for anyone isn’t it?

15 thoughts on “the jinx”

  3. Wonder where you’d been Billy. Good to see a post from you, but pretty scary stuff. Take things sensibly, and if you feel tired, stop. Easy for me, an outsider, to say, but I’ve watched my Hubby push himself (not dialysis, but other ailments involving mobility, infections and DVTs) and then push himself a bit more only to undo what good he’d done. Having similar problems now with his diet, doing so well on eating solids, then he overloads himself and we go back a step or two.
    Take care and keep safe.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you. I have to force myself to relax sometimes because I have a tendency to forget my age and condition and just give it hell every day.
      You nailed it about your husband, pushing it is 2 steps forward and 3 steps back

      Like

      Reply

      1. He does it all the time and it is SO difficult not to say I told you so!! However, when he first had his accident (before I knew him) if he’d done exactly what he was told instead of pushing himself in the gym every day, he would never have got out of the wheelchair.

        Liked by 1 person

  7. Wow, sucks to hear about that, and I’m wishing you a smooth journey to recovery. I don’t believe in jinxes myself, but the last time I thought in my head—I didn’t even say it out loud—that I hadn’t gotten injured in a long while, I then proceeded to tear my abdominal wall the very next week.

    So yeah, I think I might be developing a superstition now.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a comment