A Glimpse at What my Career Might Have Been

During the few hours I was with the HBO film crew, I had such a wonderful feeling. Working with intelligent, vivacious, creative people in a collaborative setting. Wow! Something I always wanted to experience in my working life but never did. For the moments of brainstorming we had together, I am so grateful. I felt as if I were really using my smarts.

I remember my friend Heather saying of one of the positions she held in PR that she was using all her smarts. At the time, I knew that had never been the case in my career. The work had often not been sufficiently challenging, or the people I was working with were not open to new ideas or were dullards or were not that smart, or the way the organization was structured did not allow for creative input.

Of course, writing an article is intellectually challenging, but it's a solitary business. I do the research, the interviewing, the writing, the rewriting. The experience I always wanted, however, and one that I even prayed to have, was working with a team of intelligent, happy, enthusiastic, creative people with whom I would bounce off ideas and see my ideas put into action. That's what I really missed in my work life. I never felt as if my talents were being used, much less appreciated or compensated.

So for a few moments I saw what might have been. I suppose it still could be, if staying alive didn't require so much of my time!

Thank God I Didn't Go Skydiving!

A few days after my hip surgery I thought, "Oh, my God! What would have happened had I gone skydiving!"

A few weeks before I went to New York, my friend Othman asked me to join him and his friends for skydiving. I gave it serious thought, attempting to find information online about dialysis patients who skydived. I found nothing. My cardiologist and nephrologist advised against it on general grounds--the folly of anyone jumping from an airplane--but had nothing specifically to advice against it on the grounds of my heart or kidney. Dr. Butman said that I should probably jump dry (without dialysis solution in my peritoneum) in case the force of the landing should push the fluid into my lungs. Other than that, it appeared it would be no bigger problem than for anyone else.

In the end, though, I didn't go. I just had a feeling it might not be the right thing for me at this time.

Now I am so glad I didn't jump. If my bones are so brittle that I can break my hip from a standing position with no velocity, just think what might have happened from thousands of feet up. Besides one of the New York surgeons said that the mere impact of the parachute unfurling could have broken my shoulders.

Empathy for Those in Fear of Falling

Like many young and middle-aged people, I'm sure, I often wondered how an elderly person could die of a broken hip. I completely understand it now.

A broken hip is extremely painful, and if someone were already compromised by other illnesses or in a weak condition, I don't know as if she or he would have the wherewithall to get out of bed again. And with lack of movement comes the possibility of infection that could do one in.

So now I completely understand why the elderly are afraid of falling. I, too, do not want to fall again.