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Dialysis: friend or foe?

I either have Munchausen syndrome or I am developing a fetish; whatever, the way I am feeling cannot be healthy. I didn't realise until I reached my 28th month on dialysis that it was possible for hatred to exude from your bones, but living with this disease has been nothing if not enlightening. That said, the monotonous, unyielding nature of kidney failure lends itself to a perverse kind of reassurance.

When things are going badly in my day to day existence, it compounds the dismay I feel at having to deal with kidney failure. Conversely, when things are going well, they are tempered by the disease lurking in the background; in short, you can't win and it all sort of sucks all the time. However, when I find myself adrift in life's turbulent seas, dialysis is a constant. It never changes and never promises to deviate from how it was advertised. It is always a bit painful, a bit boring and a bit soul-destroying - but at least it is always the same. As walls relationships, finances and career plans crash down around me, dialysis stands tall as a refuge... though perhaps in the same way that churches are considered refuges, before the Heathen pillagers hack down the doors and set fire to the terrified mass huddled inside.

Today was not a good day. In fact, the last two weeks have been a little bit crap. There has been a lot of uncertainty of late and I have been anxious about situations that I thought might have bad outcomes. And I was proved right. I have felt the gnawing of loneliness, primarily because someone I wanted to be close to has left me to feel so. If there is one thing I have learnt the hard way in my meagre twenty-three years, it is that you cannot account for what other people are thinking and you cannot force them to tell you the truth about it. This leaves you guessing, and wondering, and imagining the worst.

Dialysis, however, will not let you down; it is a military regiment and will not abide being skipped. In times of dire and chronic loneliness - and I can't quite believe I'm about to articulate this - it becomes almost a friend. It is virtually impossible to make anyone who does not live with this disease understand what it is like, just as I have no concept of how it is to be adopted or to travel around Australia having not experienced such things first-hand. Being unable to share your feelings and fears with others who can truly relate to what you are saying effectively isolates you; but there are two of us in this vacuum: me and my kidney failure; we are symbiotic. It is the only thing in my life that I can always, without any question of a doubt, rely on, whether I wish to or not. Living with the intricacies of this disease day in, day out, is so incredibly intimate and personal. How could I explain to anyone how nervous I am about the upcoming weekend, because I will be required to eat meals in the company of others on at least three occasions? I will not want to be rude and refuse food, but the more I eat, the more my weight will increase and the tougher Monday's dialysis session will be. How do I share my almost overwhelming anxiety at how I am going to cope with dialysis once I go back to work, when everyone has been so pleased that I am about to embark on a new job?

I don't want special dispensation and I don't want monumental change, I just want this to stop. I don't want to be different, or better or special, but I ache with every fibre of my being to be the same. I don't want people to try and understand this disease, I just want to be rid of it. I don't want to have to buck up - I simply don't want to have such a consuming reason to be frightened and sad and lonely. If renal failure is my friend, it is a pretty one-sided friendship and I'm not sure I want to play with it anymore. Dialysis is a wonderful remedy for broken kidneys, but nothing can fix a broken heart.

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