After recording my latest YouTube video for the fifty-leventh time before getting a usable version, I realized I didn’t answer the question posed by the inspiration email. In the video, I talk about how to bring up the notion of stopping dialysis to the nephrologist, but the writer was asking how to bring it up to their sister on dialysis. Anyone familiar with the vernacular “fifty-leventh” knows that means I did not have it in me to do even one more take. But I can address their question here.
introducing...the people's nephrologist!
I made a simple wish list for Christmas. Some new fuzzy Uggs since I wore down the last pair to fuzzless. A lavender candle or two for my bubble baths. And a pretty journal for writing.
If you knew my hubby (and holder of my left kidney for 16 years now), you would not be surprised that not only did he present me with new fuzzy Uggs, bubble bath swag, lounging PJs because he had grown weary of seeing me in the red plaid Target PJ set I bought at least three years ago, but also a trough of journals. And not just simple journals. No, the trough from my forever and wonderfully extra Robert was filled with soft brown leather-jacketed journals with a fancy wrap-around tie, each embossed with: Dr. Vanessa Grubbs, The People’s Nephrologist.
the meaninglessness of an eye flitter
A couple of weeks ago, I was the attending nephrologist for our hospital consultation service when I met Mr. Jones. He had suffered a severe heart attack. His heart was stunned into stillness and couldn’t effectively pump oxygen-filled blood to his kidneys or any of his other parts for the however many minutes it took for the ambulance to get to him and start resuscitation. Once he was transferred to the hospital, the cardiologists successfully reopened the major coronary artery responsible for the attack, but his kidneys weren’t working as well as they had been before. But his kidneys were the least of his troubles. My interaction with his family reminded me of an experience in my own life from about twenty years prior.
what we could have done
The old woman died. I heard she slept more and more of the days away until one day she stopped talking and eating in the awake moments. Then her breathing slowed and her breaths shallowed until she stopped breathing altogether.