Do People See Me as a Freak?

Just as I was feeling OK about the whole dialysis thing, a friend's boyfriend said that I must feel funny at work, that my co-workers must think of me as some kind of freak. And wouldn't it be better if I just removed myself from that situation and quit work, went out on disability? "I'm sure you'd rather not have them always looking at you like you're a freak," he said.

I think that, in some twisted way, he meant to offer support through his comments. The thing was I hadn't been thinking of myself as a freak, and I hadn't considered that others looked at me that way--that is, until he said this.

But maybe they do. Maybe already in their minds they have relegated me to the almost-dead category. That I am no longer worth bothering with because they think I won't be around much longer and, even if I am, do they really want to associate with someone who has to add and remove fluids from her body four times a day through a tube permanently implanted in her abdomen?

Of course, everyone adds and removes fluids from the body many times each day. But somehow doing it quick and easy over a toilet is different.

Who knows what people think. If the truth be told, I'm sure that there are plenty of people who have thought I'm a freak even without knowing anything about my medical challenges.

But I do know what I will do the next time Daryl or anyone else brings up freakiness: I'll tell him straight on that, that's not the way I think about myself.

At This Time Tomorrow

At this time tomorrow I will have already completed surgery. I'll probably be in the recovery room by 9 a.m.

Although the heavy-duty emotions regarding dialysis have subsided--I'm no longer crying about it or waking up in the morning with my very first thought being dialysis--I still find the prospect of having a permanent catheter in my belly a bit daunting. It's as if I had been told that tomorrow I will die, even though today I'm walking about, enjoying the sunshine, acting as if tomorrow is such a long ways off.

I guess it just doesn't quite seem real yet.

I'm not looking forward to being under general anesthesia either. Only once before did I experience this--as a 6-year-old, when I had my tonsils removed. I remember so clearly the sensation of falling down a dark tunnel, not at all what I feel when I naturally drop off to sleep. I also remember the drawing I colored just before surgery--a multi-colored spiral. And I recall all the popsicles I was given afterwards.

Perhaps this time I'll have a more pleasant experience. Perhaps Archangel Michael and his minions will appear, as they did on April 1, 2000, on the other side of my back fence, in all their heavenly glory. Michael stood front and center, and around him and to a vanishing point behind him stretched God only knows how many glowing beings, the uncountable ones at the archangel's command. He was a bad-ass dude, someone you would not want to cross, someone you would want by your side, as your protector. I could see how he might draw a line in the sand with his sword and say to the devil, "This far and no farther." Not at all like the effeminate angels that are usually portrayed in art. (The image posted here is the closest I could find to how the archangel appeared to me, but even this image is a bit swishy, especially in the softness of the face.)

With dark skin or maybe just a great tan and bedecked like a gladiator without the helmet, Archangel Michael looked at me straight on, peered into my eyes and into my soul, and said, "The strength that you see within me is there inside of you." I sure could use that kind of pep talk again.