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Sexual healing

There is a nurse at the hospital who is quite fit. This is highly anomalous and yet not that difficult seeing as his only competition comes from small, middle aged Phillipino women. He is quite swarthy, and possibly French; not my usual type, but, again, in comparison...

In other circumstances, I might even fancy him a bit - and by other circumstances, I don't mean if I had met him in a club rather than on my dialysis unit, although the latter isn't exactly conducive to romance. By other circumstances, I mean if I had any libido left to speak of. I think I might have broken. Read any pamphlet, browse any website, and all information proffered confirms that Mojo Erosion (yes, that's the medical term) is a common fall out from kidney failure, though it is most frequently experienced in tandem with depression, and I may be stressed and tired and borderline anorexic but I would not describe myself as 'depressed". 90% of the time, anyway. But what with one thing and another, my sexual well is dry...if you will excuse a very unfortunate turn of phrase...

The desire to have sex has deserted me (though I should be clear, it is not exactly being foisted upon me). More worryingly, I have stopped noticing sex. My world has become entirely chaste; I no longer notice hot guys on the tube. I don't smile coyly at men in bars anymore. The builders who say, "Good morning, love," and, "SHE'S lovely, isn't she?" (I swear to God he said that) get short thrift and my averted gaze in response. I have even become apathetic about Dermot O'Leary. Yes, things are really that bad.

When I think about myself, all I can conceive of is Rosy the Kidney Patient...and kidney failure is about as sexy as cataracts. There was once a time, hard as it is to remember, when I very much enjoyed the opposite sex; what I lacked in good looks and physique I made up for with promiscuity and alcohol. Over the years, I've done all right; never the best, but hopefully not the worst, and just enough solvent men have found me attractive, I hope, to prove that I once, maybe, had something about me. I have never really been "sexy" as such, but I used to be fun; I think that when my libido went down, it took my joie de vie with it. I miss it. I miss flirting. I might have flirted with Quite Fit Nurse if he hadn't been pushing needles into my fistula and asking me how much I weighed (maybe French nurses consider that foreplay, who knows). There is plenty to recommend my celibate lifestyle - no shaving, plenty of room for me and Bear in bed, don't have to fellate anyone - but on balance I would get on board with each and every aspect if it meant I could get a little spirit back. I miss who I used to be; all I can hope is that a transplant will go a long way in helping me to rediscover my more light-hearted nature. An increased sexual appetite is not the most compelling argument for my needing a new kidney, but I hope it will get my blood pumping again, in more ways than one. You can write the joke about inserting organs yourself.

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