by Dennis Green
I listen to the expert on global warming explain our planetary dilemma. “It’s already too late to stop global warming,” he says. “We’ve already added one degree to the temperature, and there’s another degree in the pipeline. Among working scientists there is no disagreement. It’s happening. It’s real. It’s irreversible, and the consequences are going to be enormous. It’s people versus physics, the fossil fuel people versus the science, but the physics doesn’t have any money to make its case, no lobbyists, no congressmen on its side…”
Melting glaciers and polar caps…rising ocean levels…the oceans one-third more acidic than they were ten years ago…the balance of nature and eco-systems disrupted, destroyed. It’s the end of the world as we know it!
Macro. Microcosm that I am, my own personal, physical, medical ecology is failing along with the planet’s. My kidney function, a month ago now, dropped from 17% of normal to 15% of normal, then suddenly to 5% of normal. Anything under 10% is fatal unless drastic and dramatic treatment is undertaken: dialysis.
And there are two methods of dialysis — hemodialysis, where a catheter is inserted into a major artery, and the body’s blood is pumped into a machine where it is filtered, the toxins and excess fluid removed, some chemicals added that would ordinarily be restored by the body itself. This is by far the more common method pursued by victims of kidney failure — fully 93% of sufferers chose hemodialysis.
The other method, chosen by only 7% of those with kidney failure, is peritoneal dialysis, where a permanent catheter is inserted into the peritoneal cavity, whereby special fluid fills the cavity and by osmosis across the peritoneal diaphragm removes toxins from the vital bodily fluids, and the resulting waste fluid is then drained via that same catheter, using gravity or by machine. Manual peritoneal dialysis requires several such fluid exchanges every day and one long overnight exchange to keep the body well.
No amount of hemodialysis can purify the bloodstream as well as peritoneal dialysis does. But not everyone can perform or endure the process, the multiple exchanges, going through the day filled with the cleansing fluid, or being hooked up to the machine all night. But for me, having experienced both, I will endure anything to avoid the agonies of hemodialysis and to experience the additional benefits of peritoneal.
On hemo, the mind is obscured as an airport might be by fog. Awareness is severely dimmed, and one lives from one session to the next, with little of interest in-between. The rest is like a state of comatose semi-consciousness. At the hemo clinic, there are literally dozens of people dozing on their couches having their bloodstreams filtered by machine.
On hemo, my universe shrinks to a very small nut-like core of dim awareness. I don’t care about world peace. I don’t care about global warming, or planet death or the end of the world as we know it. I feel fine. But I feel very little of anything. I am only dimly aware of other people, and world events are beyond my human ken. It’s the end of the world as I knew it…and I feel…
©2010 Dennis Green
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