Ramble

Low blood pressure is no fun, but the irony of having a bunch of surgeons look at you very earnestly and tell you that you should consider eating things like pepperoni pizza is a laff riot that nobody wants to miss. I'm sitting there--OK, laying there--and my strapping Swedish transplant surgeon hands me a cup of salty chicken broth, then he asks if I like chips.

What is it about me that doctors feel the need to feed me? I promise I'm not skeletal; in no way do I appear to have denied myself anything in the realm of foodstuff, ever.

It seems to me that the only really sensible doctor on the transplant team is Dr. Kelly, a stern blond Irish woman who wears very high heels with coffee-colored hose. The rest are extraordinarily charming men, all exquisitely dressed when they're not wearing scrubs.

In any case, I have a lot more energy than the last time I got home. I washed dishes and changed the overhead light in the kitchen, then I made some nice, salty, vegetable soup. My mom, you see, is great in terms of moral support; she's not much help in terms of practical support. I keep tossing about phrases like "we'll do better tomorrow, right?" So far she excells at taking naps, talking on the phone and watching television. As I said, I'm the one who washed the dishes and made dinner tonight.

It's OK, really. I'm strong enough to take care of myself, and the moral support does help. At last, I'm less concerned about trying to move my mom along on some path toward responsibility and more concerned with dealing with my life.

It's funny how everything has changed, but in a lot of ways, nothing has changed. I still marvel about everything that's happened over the past two weeks. My outlook on life is completely different in some respects, but quite how it's different remains to be seen.

I still feel like myself, which is good. I have always worried that if I lost my stressors, I'd lose some part of who I am. That doesn't seem to be true, which is good.

Rest assured that I am working on a coherent narrative about the whole transplant experience. I don't know if I'll put it here, but I will publish it someplace.

All for now, my back hurts and I need to lay down.

before - after