“The Dream of being the duck’s feet.”
I can hear you asking Ducks feet, what did you eat Anthony? Ok, so there is a meaning to this, and it is dialysis related. It was during one of my treatments when this dream started. After getting married things started to be a lot busier, working a swing shift in retail plus trying to go to dialysis, building my marriage and keeping all the other commitments that I had made. It was a challenge to say the least, so with all this happening there was a realization that a job change was needed. Working in retail, not only was I in a room full of opportunity, but many times those opportunities would come seeking information about the services that I provided. Now before you get ahead of me, I worked in the plumbing section of a retail store, having prior knowledge of this trade really helped in my job.
One day an opportunity walked up and asked for help which I provided and during our conversation I mentioned that I was looking into getting back into the plumbing field and the reply was that there was an opening where he worked though it was not plumbing it was close. Water Treatment.
Now let’s step back a few years. I fell in love with water treatment at age 18 during a training class. What made me fall in love with it was my teacher. He made it seem so fascinating and how much clean water could help so many people, yes even here in the US there is a need for cleaner and better water in our households. What helped spark that fire was the second day of training. The first day was all about the technical stuff, repairs and installs. The second day was sales training. I walked in the room 15 minutes before class started, and it was empty and stayed that way until class time and when the teacher walked it was just us two. He gave me a choice to stay and be taught by him, or go home earlier. Not wanting to go back to work I agreed to stay and that was one of those days that turned my life around as Jim Rohn so eloquently put it. After that, I fell head over heels in love with water treatment and even started a program to sell it at the store I was employed at.
After I found out there was a water treatment job open, I started to pursue it until I landed it. Excited to get back into the field and also having a normal schedule, there was a need to change my dialysis schedule. Once I accepted the job, it was time to change my schedule to back to 3rd shift on dialysis.
The next treatment I asked one of my care team members if it would be possible to change due to my new employment, 3rd shift was not a coveted spot, and she told me it should not be a problem, and they would put me in for it. Then she asked what will be doing at your new job. I told her about the water treatment job and how much I loved it when I was in the plumbing field working and serving household water treatment and the customers. This would be different because it was a municipality or a city water treatment and would be more than just a household but the whole city. She said I am really glad for you then she looked very thoughtful and asked a question that would once again change my course and my life, and I am ever grateful for this question. Have you ever thought about being a biomed for dialysis? Ummm well no what is biomed. She explained to me this way, a biomed and the biomed team in dialysis is really the duck’s feet of the clinic. Very few people see them yet without them the clinic would not run. To do dialysis you must have pure and clean water and there is a water treatment system in every dialysis facility. Without clean water, a safe treatment would not be possible. They also take care of the dialysis machine and the majority of the equipment you see. I was astounded, you mean that there is a way for me to help my fellow dialysis patients other than putting them on the machine, I mean who ever heard of such a thing. I was fascinated, in fact so fascinated that I told myself that one day I would be a biomed and one day I would work in the same clinic that I was running at and one day I would be a duck’s foot. Would that one day come? Only time would tell, but until then I would learn all I could at my new job, so I would be ready to take that opportunity when it was time and help others that are on dialysis.
Kidney Trails 