Experiencing Life

On the latest reincarnation of Star Trek, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, we go back in time to before James T. Kirk was the captain of the Enterprise.  Christopher Pike is Kirk’s predecessor and sits in the captain’s chair.  In an early episode, Pike is having a conversation with Mr. Spock and states, “You can’t just live life, you have to experience it.” That really struck home with me.

Initially because of Covid and then leaving the hospital with a weakened immune system I pretty much imprisoned myself in our home. It was just too risky to be out in public. Certainly not the way you want to live your life, but I just could not afford to get sick.

After spending four months in the hospital and three weeks in a rehab facility, the last thing I wanted to do was end up back in the hospital. Sadly, despite my precautions, I made two weeklong trips back to the Mayo Hospital. That was the end of 2022. Boy, how things have changed.

With the flexibility that doing dialysis at home gives you, we can pretty much set our schedule as we wish. We slowly started getting ourselves out of the house. We began by just taking 45-minute drives around the area. Next was occasionally going to restaurants and eating on their patios. Then at the beginning of this year, we would go to a movie after my weekly appointments at the Mayo for blood tests. You would be surprised how empty theaters are on Wednesdays at one in the afternoon.

We have even started to go to supermarkets and Costco. We do wear masks when we do that. Of course, we get looks from people wondering why we do it. A few weeks ago, there was a little girl in a shopping cart with her mom that hid when she saw me. I’m not Godzilla, but I think she might have thought so.

Another big step was getting behind the wheel of a car. After I left the hospital, I just wasn’t ready to drive until a few months ago.  We got up early one Sunday morning to go to breakfast and I drove us there. Its like riding a bicycle, you just never forget. Its amazing what that did for me. For the first time, I felt a little more self sufficient. I now walk three to four miles a day. When I left the hospital, I needed a walker to get around. Now I am free of all that.

We are now planning a vacation to Florida later in the year. We have our reservations set but we still need to find where I can do dialysis while we are there. We will be meeting with the social worker at the dialysis center to get that set up. It’s been five years since we went on a vacation, and I can’t wait.

You might have noticed the word “we” a lot in this entry to my blog.  I think there is something that happens to you when you almost die.  It’s like I have new life and I appreciate everything more.  I always appreciated everything that Julia brings to the table but that has kicked into a new level.  Not only has she become my dialysis nurse sticking me with monster needles four times a week, she is going to make one of her kidneys available to me. How was I so lucky to find this amazing woman?

Today, she started the rigorous testing that has to be done before you can participate in an organ transplant.  She is going to give up a kidney if she and I pass all of the Mayo’s tests. I start my testing July 1 and have to get approved by a committee to see if I am a good candidate.  It is a bit of a long shot because of my cancer and all of the transfusions I had to have over the last two years. Apparently, I might have picked up too many antibodies from the transfusions to be able to find a match.

I have already been given one miracle by God to keep me cancer free for two years, we’ll see if He has another one up his sleeve.