A few weeks ago Karen and I had occasion to drive down the street and past the modern brick building where my DaVita dialysis clinic is housed. I didn't think my grumble was audible, but wives hear everything.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know," I said, the softness of my voice surprising even me. "I'm just thinking about DaVita." More likely, I was thinking about the specter of yet another training session in my immediate future, this one to learn how to move from manual at-home Peritoneal Dialysis to a "cycler," an intricate, elaborate machine that will do much of the kidney assist work for me over an eight-hour period.
"What does DaVita mean to you?"
Long silence. "Weakness. Sickness. Total change of life. Mortality." Without even realizing it, I had lapsed into a ripple of depression.
"I choose not to think of it that way," Karen replied. "I prefer to think of information. And hope.
"And life."
She looked at me, the way your spouse looks at you when she or he realizes they've just created a memory. She reached over and touched my hand.
We drove on into the dark night, but the streetlights seemed to glow a little brighter.
No comments:
Post a Comment