Semantics

My new blog already has inspired messages from many corners, some from friends I haven't communicated with in a long time. I received an e-mail last night from a dear acquaintance in Detroit who wrote, "(It's) oddly comforting in the way you're dealing with your kidney failure. ... If it's OK, how about a phone conversation? I'll call you, and if you're not up for it...."

Whoa, Nellie; back the truck up. I realize there is something about the word "failure" that sparks visions of hospital beds, tubes, monitors and Jimmy Cagney's last scene with his father in "Yankee Doodle Dandy." But don't start sending the cards and flowers just yet, please. The fact is, I feel fine. Except for the 10-15 pills I now take every day, I feel pretty much like I did before my condition was diagnosed.

That's the insidious part about kidney failure – scratch that, I hate that word; kidney "disease" – there's no pain. As my first nephrologist in Detroit, a delightful and intense little doctor named Fawaz Al-Ejel, once told me, "Your kidneys will never hurt. Pain won't indicate the severity of your condition." Great.

It sneaks up on you. You don't know you have it until you have it. That's why annual checkups, especially as we get older, are so critical. Often you can lessen the severity of a condition if it's detected early enough.

I think the big problem is the words used by the medical community. I particularly detest the phrase "end-stage" renal failure; makes it sound like you're already beyond the pale. Yes, my kidneys are failing, but they haven't "failed" yet. They're still in there churning, fighting, doing the very best they can. I'm sure it's going to get worse before it gets better, but for right now I'm holding my own.

So please don't conceive me as an invalid in your mind. I feel perfectly normal right now. Walked two miles with the girls after school just last night, in fact. Feel free to call, write, text, twit or e-mail. If I don't respond, it's not because I'm sick. I just don't want to talk to you. :)

My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you, too.