The Desert
By Ethel Barton
The deserts she’d seen in pictures had pinkish sunrises and prickly cactus standing tall. Her desert had pale pink walls with a white-sheeted bed and needles instead of cacti. Usually when embarking on a journey, she’d prepared for the destination, did research on the surroundings, packed a bag, but she’d wandered out on the desert without knowing. One week she’d been working in the library and the next she was on a desert. One day she was normal, drinking whenever she pleased and the next, she was cut off.
“Can I have a drink of water, please?”
“No.”
“But I’m so thirsty. I need a drink.”
“Here, have an ice chip to moisten your mouth.”
She reached for it like it was a piece of gold; one thin little ice chip and she sucked away its moisture.
Those early days in the desert she went through the motions of life, too sick to understand the totality of her predicament. Then she came to realize that she was hamstrung to a refrigerator-shaped whirring machine; connected to it with two thick blunt needles with one line taking her blood out and another feeding it back in after it had been cleansed of its impurities.
What a damn big excuse for kidneys! The dialysis machine was at once her savior and tormenter. The first time that she could remember through her sickness, after dialysis she’d croaked from the dryness. They were trying to estimate her dry weight, the weight of her body completely devoid of fluid. Her mouth was as arid as dust; her tongue, like that of a shoe, leathery and dry. She tried to muster up spit by clearing her throat over and over again. But nothing happened.
She gasped, “Can I have a drink of water, please?”
“No.”
“But I’m so thirsty.”
“Here, have an ice chip.”
She told herself that one day she would drink a super gigantic glass of water filled with ice cubes. They would continue to melt and thus become a self-regenerating spring, which never dried up.
Being connected to the dialysis machine was terrifying, with the horrible realization that she could be tethered to it for life; an overweight friend that made whirring noises and restricted her movement; helped her enough to live but not so much as to thrive. Her fluid intake was rigidly restricted -- she could have four cups of fluid a day: 32 ounces that included as well any liquid such as tea, soup, pop, even jello and ice cream.
The days were marked by dialysis days and non-dialysis days; three of the former and four of the latter each week. There were no good days just those less bad; small stolen moments when she left her self-pity behind but the thirst was always there.
She learned that she couldn’t be around a hospital without seeing that she was lucky compared to someone else. Unless she died, there was someone worse off. Some at dialysis had stumps for legs, amputated because of diabetes. Her diet was rigid: no tomatoes, oranges or bananas, no salt, no prepared meats, hot dogs or bacon, ham or junk food. But those who had diabetes had an even more rigid diet, no sweets as well.
She discovered that if she saved her ice chips in a container, they would melt and she would have a whole mouthful of delicious thirst-killing water. She held it in her mouth, swished it around and then at last swallowed.
She couldn’t see herself moving forward, taking little steps. But one day she emerged from the desert’s gloom. She started to see the world again with flowers and sunrises. She started to look at each day as a gift, one she wouldn’t have without the whirring machine.