Jeff's Journal

A Loose Fitting Mortality

I did dialysis early today. Skyler has the first All Star game tonight. It’s in Baytown at 8:00 and I wanted to be recovered for the game, so this was an experiment. I was at the 5:30 am time with the clinic. Also, Weston left for camp today at 2:00. I had hoped to be at the bus to send him off, but that did not happen.

We were talking at home the other day about Weston heading off to camp. (Actually, the family would say I was whining.) There were laments about next month. Weston is on his way to Colorado. I was supposed to go with him to Colorado. We were going to camp for the week in the mountains and white water raft. I have learned I handle life better when there is at least once a year when I get out and experience terrain larger and more natural than the Kemah bridge.

Anyway, I had that week planned out and was looking forward to the mountains and a rushing river. As a matter of fact, I had the whole month planned. Weston and I were going to head on to Colorado for this week while Skyler finished All Stars. Then after All Stars, Shelley and Skyler were supposed to come up to Colorado where we were going to explore a new family ministry called Sonrise Mountain Ranch. (Great ministry and we were going to see what they could offer for a Family Camp.)

After the week with Sonrise, we were planning to drive down to Durango to be with our youth group for their youth camp. The final aspects of the plan was to finish the month off by going to the Navajo Mission Trip and check up on the mission team in New Mexico. It was a great plan for the month of July and involved lots of mountains and less concrete than Houston. But that plan is not going to be implemented – this year.

That was when I was talking (or whining depending upon who you talk to) and blurted out how dialysis has messed up things this summer. That was when my better half took out the calendar and helped me see things in a different perspective.

She reminded me that technically, next week would be about the time I would have died if it were not for this inconvenience called dialysis. When folks get to the stage of being on dialysis, they usually have between 1 to 5 weeks to live. Next week will be week six for me. (Gee, where does the time go when you’re having so much fun?!) I feel better than I have felt in years. Without the intervention of treatment, I don’t want to imagine how bad it would have become. It was bad enough when we started.

When the consequences are pointed out, it is always sobering. I prefer a loose fitting mortality, one that wears like a baggy sweater and is not too tight to wear. You know, one that kind of hangs off your frame and gathers around you and does not get in your way too much. It is easy to think we control the destinies of our lives and the great “the end” is some where out there and it does not encroach on our lives. That is the type of mortality I like, the one held at bay. However, mortality is a tighter fit for ESRD patients. The machines are a constant reminder and even with a transplant, mortality is just an arm’s length away. I’ve talked with transplant folks and they say in the back of their mind, even though things are going well, they know things really are not right and one little infection or something else could happen to take it all down. It is all borrowed time – time allowed from artificial means.

The art seems to be the ability to wear this tighter fitting mortality as if it were a baggy, comfortable sweater. With this borrowed time it is also time to make plans and get on with life. I am in a more reflective posture and watching more people these days. I find it amazing what we take for granted and how we really put off living in order to wait for some extraordinary circumstance. I’m seeing another reality these days. The reality is every experience is an extraordinary circumstance carried out on borrowed time.

posted by Jeff Waldo @ 4:59 PM