Hemodialysis treatments typically lasted four hours when I worked in the hospital as a dialysis nurse. I knew many of my patients quite well since it was not uncommon for them to have occasional admissions. Sometimes, we had time to visit once their treatment was in progress. One of my patients, Joe, told me an unforgettable story. A brittle diabetic, he was struggling with failing vision, as well as kidney failure. Hoping to cheer him up, his mother took him fishing. Instead of putting their catch on a stringer, Mama just tossed their fish in a five-gallon bucket of water in the edge of the lake. When they got ready to go home, they put the bucket on the floorboard behind the back seat of their vehicle. Mama was driving, Joe, her passenger, had his arm stretched across the back of the bench seat. Out of the blue, Mama screamed, “Snake! Snake!”, screeched to a halt, and abandoned poor Joe to the snake which had caught a ride in the bucket of fish.

Somehow, the poor sightless man managed to get himself out of the vehicle without his terrified mother’s help. She wouldn’t come near the car with the snake in it. Providentially, a Good Samaritan came to his aid. He never mentioned the outcome with the snake. That story gave me nightmares!