We debate amongst ourselves. By we, I mean the ones who waited as I did, and who came away with a scar that mirrors mine.
Would it be better to have been sick from the start than to get sick in the middle? Would we have coped better than we did?
Do people look at us differently now? Do we give a fuck?
We endured the same hardship, but of course we are each individual.
One says in relation to almost everything, as he rolls along now, one restful night’s sleep after another: “I don’t regard [x] as a problem, because I know what a real problem is”.
Another says: “Fuck you, do you know what I’ve been through? I don’t care if you like me or not”.
I wonder if it has changed me at all. I wonder if all my perspective was used up after my father died.
I can assure you I didn’t give a toss about my Junior Cert the following year.
Does perspective in fact have a shelf life? I think mine did.
But then, I shouldn’t give myself a hard time. This evening course I’m taking at the moment? I went last night, and it was all about how stress relates to cardiac events.
There was a scale drawn up in the seventies, rating how your chances of cardiac events increased dramatically when you were hit with shades of hell on earth.
Death of a loved one, marital breakdown, job loss, serious illness – they all break you a little.
The last 30 years have put my score ahead of the average, and the odds for my heart aren’t great really.
But then, Christmas made that list too, as an event that can be so trying it can damage the most fragile organ that represents life itself.
I guess some people just hate carol singers.
Hi Regina,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your blog.
I was diagnosed with IGA Nephritus last year and am currently on 10hrs pd every night.
I am 31, and have just been put on the transplant list in Beaumont, so the wait by the phone begins.
It is scary the way I can relate to all your posts (especially being male), even to the smaller points of inquisative 2 year old nieces.
Reading how you dealt with dialysis and how you are now enjoying life with a transplant really gives me a sense of drive and hope, knowing that there is light at the end of the tunnel (made from the many boxes of dialysis fluid.)
Make the most of your second chance at life and I hope Emmett looks after you. All going well, my journey will take a very similar path to yours.
Please keep the blog going,
Yogi
I have a dear friend who is suffering terribly from polycystic kidney disease. She's on the list for a kidney, they said it would be 9 years! She's 56 years old and this disease has enlarged her kidneys to 7 to 8 times the normal size! They are now pressing on all the nerves and affecting everything else inside her. She's suffering so much, in constant horrible pain, and it is becoming so debilitating for her. Her words were. "I won't last 9 years." I feel.so helpless to was her suffering. What can be done to speed up this wait? ����
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