Most people measure their successes through conventional social barometers: a pay rise, say, or aesthetically pleasing children. Not me - no no. To define myself in such staid, traditional terms would expose me as severely lacking anyway. This is not to say I have not achieved: this week, for instance, I finished watching the entire series of "ER". It has taken me months, it has been boring at times, but on Friday, I did it. All fifteen series of it.
I would never have managed such an impressive feat had it not been for dialysis. How else would I have found twelve hours per week to devote to DVD watching? Work or socialising or other such superfluous nuisances would have gotten in the way if I didn't have to be at the hospital. The element of sadism involved in watching a hospital drama whilst in hospital has not escaped me, but there is schadenfreude in watching someone have an arm ripped off in a horrific tractor accident whilst sitting snugly in a south London NHS hospital eating Digestives; there is also an enormous amount of pleasure in watching George Clooney do anything at all.
"ER" afficionados - and I now include myself in this humiliating category - of course know that George is the glitzy, cliched choice for the show's foremost pin-up. The real star in terms of stone cold foxiness is in fact Noah Wyle who played the vulnerable and compassionate John Carter and, over the course of fifteen series, progressed from the lovable ingenue into the capable leading man. George may have been the lustful crush that propelled me over the cusp of tweenager into hormone-addled adolescence, but Noah was my enduring love.
For one thing, we share the same birthday (June 4th) so right off the bat we have a meant-to-be kind of thing going on. Carter leaves "ER" around series 13 to help the needy in Africa (he's so giving!) and cement his relationship with Thandie Newton (he likes British girls, excellent...) but for the final series, the producers bring him back. When he returns, his arm is bleeding mysteriously and the audience is treated to a lot of quizzical looks (from other doctors) and embarrassed responses (from Carter) before, lo and behold, it is reveled that he is in kidney failure and on dialysis.
Out of all the characters the producers could have afflicted with the same condition I have - and despite never having met or even heard of me, surely my own situation predicated their story arc - they chose Carter. It is obvious that Noah Wyle and I are destined for one another. However, once I had stopped obsessing over the deep chestnut hue of Noah/Carter's eyes, I found it was a distinctly odd sensation to watch my favourite character hooked up to a dialysis machine...whilst I was hooked up to a dialysis machine.
Only when you have a great deal on insight into a certain medical condition do you truly understand how many liberties television shows take with the facts in the name of entertainment and time constraints. We see Carter dialysing once, though he claims he does every other day, and he never seems to need to take time off work to do so; he goes on to pass out due to fluid overload and high potassium despite the fact he looks as slim and lithe (and gorgeous...grr...) as he has ever done - his stomach does not expand to resemble a water bed, unlike mine. He has only just re-appeared in Chicago - to get on the list, he tells us - but receives the call for a transplant with in a matter of weeks. Admittedly, I have heard of this happening in "real" life, but after nineteen months on The List, obviously it hasn't for me. Maybe I should move to Chicago. Indeed, during the mournful yet arty shot in which we see Carter dialysing, he is seated in a large comfortable chair in a dark, peaceful ward where his fellow patients are tranquilly watching their personal TV. No more proof is needed that Bostock is definitely not Chicago.
Dialysis sometimes feels so much like my own little secret, my own private world, that to see it documented on TV is peculiar; it turns out, other people know about it, even those fancy Hollywood types. Who knew? Watching a fictional character act out the exact scenarios that constitute my own life is weird, frankly, as though someone has read my diary and then made a film about it. Even more bizarre is watching dialysis happen whilst I am dialysing myself, almost as though I am reflected in the TV screen. It is yet alien due to the pre-requisite TV gloss administered to the gritty business of dialysis. For the reasons mentioned above, TV dramas cannot do kidney failure justice: there are too many other characters to care about for a comprehensive exposition on exactly what a life on dialysis entails. I'm glad it was Carter who succumbed to kidney failure, however, because everyone loves Carter. If it had been a lesser character, one who garnered a smaller amount of the audiences' affection (I'm looking at you, Dr Gates) the emotional connection the viewers had with the story line might have been lost. This was kidney failure's one just chance to shine! Organ failure: cancer's understudy. We had one chance to show the world (i.e. Sky viewers) what we were about - we couldn't afford to blow it.
Seeing dialysis and the wait for a kidney depicted on such a successful and syndicated show as"ER" makes me feel...legitimate. It is reassuring to know I am not part of a forgotten or silent minority; perhaps just a misunderstood and under-represented one. Of course, I'm not wild about being part of a renal failure collective in the first place; its the medical equivalent of the chess club. But if I have to be in a transplant gang, I'm delighted that John Carter is in it too.
I would never have managed such an impressive feat had it not been for dialysis. How else would I have found twelve hours per week to devote to DVD watching? Work or socialising or other such superfluous nuisances would have gotten in the way if I didn't have to be at the hospital. The element of sadism involved in watching a hospital drama whilst in hospital has not escaped me, but there is schadenfreude in watching someone have an arm ripped off in a horrific tractor accident whilst sitting snugly in a south London NHS hospital eating Digestives; there is also an enormous amount of pleasure in watching George Clooney do anything at all.
"ER" afficionados - and I now include myself in this humiliating category - of course know that George is the glitzy, cliched choice for the show's foremost pin-up. The real star in terms of stone cold foxiness is in fact Noah Wyle who played the vulnerable and compassionate John Carter and, over the course of fifteen series, progressed from the lovable ingenue into the capable leading man. George may have been the lustful crush that propelled me over the cusp of tweenager into hormone-addled adolescence, but Noah was my enduring love.
For one thing, we share the same birthday (June 4th) so right off the bat we have a meant-to-be kind of thing going on. Carter leaves "ER" around series 13 to help the needy in Africa (he's so giving!) and cement his relationship with Thandie Newton (he likes British girls, excellent...) but for the final series, the producers bring him back. When he returns, his arm is bleeding mysteriously and the audience is treated to a lot of quizzical looks (from other doctors) and embarrassed responses (from Carter) before, lo and behold, it is reveled that he is in kidney failure and on dialysis.
Out of all the characters the producers could have afflicted with the same condition I have - and despite never having met or even heard of me, surely my own situation predicated their story arc - they chose Carter. It is obvious that Noah Wyle and I are destined for one another. However, once I had stopped obsessing over the deep chestnut hue of Noah/Carter's eyes, I found it was a distinctly odd sensation to watch my favourite character hooked up to a dialysis machine...whilst I was hooked up to a dialysis machine.
Only when you have a great deal on insight into a certain medical condition do you truly understand how many liberties television shows take with the facts in the name of entertainment and time constraints. We see Carter dialysing once, though he claims he does every other day, and he never seems to need to take time off work to do so; he goes on to pass out due to fluid overload and high potassium despite the fact he looks as slim and lithe (and gorgeous...grr...) as he has ever done - his stomach does not expand to resemble a water bed, unlike mine. He has only just re-appeared in Chicago - to get on the list, he tells us - but receives the call for a transplant with in a matter of weeks. Admittedly, I have heard of this happening in "real" life, but after nineteen months on The List, obviously it hasn't for me. Maybe I should move to Chicago. Indeed, during the mournful yet arty shot in which we see Carter dialysing, he is seated in a large comfortable chair in a dark, peaceful ward where his fellow patients are tranquilly watching their personal TV. No more proof is needed that Bostock is definitely not Chicago.
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| Lay off the taramasalata, Carter |
Seeing dialysis and the wait for a kidney depicted on such a successful and syndicated show as"ER" makes me feel...legitimate. It is reassuring to know I am not part of a forgotten or silent minority; perhaps just a misunderstood and under-represented one. Of course, I'm not wild about being part of a renal failure collective in the first place; its the medical equivalent of the chess club. But if I have to be in a transplant gang, I'm delighted that John Carter is in it too.
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