A New [Year of] Hope

The latest word from Durham is extremely positive.  Doctors have essentially retired Jim's dialysis equipment.  For the last week, his kidneys have been functioning on their own as healthy organs.  Levels of input/output volume and creatinine (a measure of phosphate indicating muscle metabolism) have both returned to normal range.

Following surgery the week of Thanksgiving, Jim suffered considerable edema, a swelling of limbs caused by the build-up of fluid beneath the skin.  That condition has resolved.  "He's actually got ankles again," said his wife Buni by phone Thursday evening.  

Jim has graduated to yogurt, applesauce, and foods of similar consistency.  He's walking longer distances with greater ease.  He's alert (and bored) enough to binge-watch episodes of Lost.

What would you binge-watch from a hospital bed?

Everything is humming.  Except his heart.  Apparently an organ became available last week, but doctors weren't 100% convinced of its compatibility.  So they passed.  Now they wait for the next one.  

Feel free to insert your own ambivalence here.  Heart transplants necessarily represent a zero sum.  They offer no net gain of life on the planet.  Someone dies.  Someone else lives.  Thus we who love Jim are wishing for the sudden, traumatic end of another life.  I say "wishing," understanding the word's solemn weight.  I say "traumatic" because disease and old age disqualify donor hearts.  

But I am not praying that a college athlete will hit a patch of black ice.  I am, instead, recognizing that accidents happen.  That people die.  Some of those people will signify benevolence and foresight with an organ donor card. 

What's in your wallet?