HEMODIALYSIS The sun is setting — behind the Santa Cruz mountains at 5 o’clock, so I shift into twilight-mode and start visiting the local ‘houses’ and communities that I know. These are people’s homes, but not the standard white-picket-fenced wood-siding-shingled houses that is iconic (if not real) of the American home. Some people are in RVs. Some are in cars. Some are in tents. And some are in boxes, under a blanket, or completely exposed. There are shelters, but they have many rules that many people do not like. And in the time of Covid, many of the shelters are shut down. I only visit people’s homes, not the shelters. Mostly I am trying to keep in touch with people, and see if there is anything I can do to help. The problem is both massive (hundreds of thousands of people that are ‘homeless’) and intimate (‘Linda’ needs to replace her carburetor to stay warm). I continue to hope the intimacy will spark insights into new solutions. The ‘Pico Pico House’ project was one solution that came out of intimate understanding of individual needs, and the discourse with Jerry and Nancy are meant to help with the massive problems. I need to talk to Grace.
History Hemodialysis was invented — by Drs. Kolff, Haas, Abel, and other great minds. It removes undesired dissolved substances and excess water from the blood through special membranes. After a few hours of pumping a patient’s blood through a dialysis machine, the body has been ‘cleansed’ similarly to the way kidneys clean it continuously. With dialysis, you can live without your kidneys. There are a few issues though. First, the machine needs to access your blood, which it does in a couple ways. Initially, it is done through a catheter (a tube) that is hooked into your blood stream. The short-term version of that - 21 -
