The ironies of life..... all change please!

The ironies of life!

It has been a while since I last cogitated and ruminated enough to pour out a post on the blog and rather a lot has changed or progressed since that last entry in December. I hardly know where to begin in order to update you to the present turn of events, without making a list of things to put in, which itself would be rather long and tedious to all eyes other than my own.  Although having said that, its my life and sometimes it even bores the life out of me, so heaven knows how you’d feel reading it!  So in the desire not to subject you to that abject monotonous meanderings of my mind, I’ve abridged the last two months of life into a manageable bite-size chunk of blogdom.  

Eiiks, that last past, phew what an emotional wreckage of a man I was then,  sorry about that, it was a little over self-indulgent to say the least. However, I had my reasons, just to recap, my emotional frazzledness was all due to going through months of tests with deep introspective soul searching with the singular purpose of becoming a living kidney donor and giving away one of those fist sized organs that for some reason taste nice with steak in pies!  I’ll not lie, emotionally it was,  what one might call a hard slog! In a way you have to face your own mortality head on, asses the risks you’re willing to make for others and ultimately for yourself.  It’s one thing accidentally putting yourself in harms way, it is another altogether different thing putting yourself there deliberately, willingly and knowingly. I’d already made those decisions, I’d already acknowledged the risks of serious complications including death as acceptable ones. I was four jumps ahead and knew the consequences of my actions were, at least to me, worth any amount of risk involved. I mean what better gift can you give than giving a stranger literally the gift of life?  

In my mind I was already living life with one kidney,  that’s how sure I was that I was doing the right thing and everything was going to be great, my life would have purpose again and I’d have done something to be proud of and show for being here on this ball we call earth. However, if you’ve read the preceding post you’ll know that idealistic, altruistic dream came to a crashing halt when a glomerular filtration rate test, the last in a long series of medical tests, indicated I could no longer be considered as a living donor.  A right slap in the face with a wet fish or a kick to the dangly parts if ever there was one. What the GFR test does is basically indicate how well the kidneys filter things, which is pretty much their job and thus quite important. My result came out at 62  (normal is upwards of 95ish) which itself revealed that not only can I not be a living kidney donor but that I also have Stage Two chronic kidney disease. At the time I was not about myself, but mighty pissed off that I couldn’t donate, indeed it is fair to say I was blooming angry about it. Anyway, abridging it all a little more, I had the test run again, just to be sure, the result was a little worse than the first, just one point away from Stage Three Chronic Kidney Disease, which takes a bit of getting used to I can tell you. Yet, thinking about it all now it makes me chuckle a bit,  it’s one of those slightly cruel ironies of my life, you know, I voluntary go to hospital (a place I hate because it’s full of sick people) under go a series of tests in order to donate something only to find unbeknownst to me that what I want to donate is already passed its prime, a bit like an old left foot plimsoll left behind in the changing room after games, old, worn but still functional yet no use to anyone else other than its original owner!  

Oh well, ’them’s the breaks‘ as my granny used to say, I‘ve had to get used to not being a living donor and a person one point away from stage three chronic kidney disease all in one rounded hit over Christmas and the new year! I’m not really bothered to be honest, not at this moment in time, I simply have to take a little extra care not to over-work my perfectly average sized kidneys with excess amounts alcohol and other substances that impair their function (thankfully chocolate is not included in that category). With luck I’ll stay at stage two for a few more years yet and whilst the difference between stage two and stage three on the graph is just one point and a fraction of a millimetre, in reality it is quite a vast gulf to cross and I don’t plan on making that journey any time soon.

On to other life news now, well life in Brighton with my brother became utterly unbearable, I’ll not go through all the reasons why here, it would take too long so long in fact there would be a real danger that by the end of it you’ll sue me unresponsive gluteus maximus, medius and minimus and blame me for a panniculus adiposus build up, or in other words, a numb fat arse!  In short, he thought nothing of my privacy and would often go through my private belongings when I was out, I wasn’t spoken to, I had lies told about me to numerous people, I had things stolen from me and I had laxatives and other unsavoury items put in my drinks and food. I went to my parents for help,  I asked to camp (that’s pitch a tent and not dance around in pink hot-pants andwhite sequined crop top singing loudly to ‘free, gay and happy!) in their garden, they refused saying they were too old for such things,  they made it jolly clear I wasn’t welcome, yet my brother, he, was allowed to stay, in the house for a few weeks or so. I should have known really, you know favourite child and all that, but hey, it still takes a bit of getting used to. The thing that really pisses me off about it is that their whole relationship with him now is built on lies and deceit,  if they knew the full truth about him, all the lies, the fraud the criminal record the violence and all that, he’d not be the golden child then,  oh no, not anymore….. Opps, I’d better make a cup of tea before I type something I shouldn’t!  

Tea made and equilibrium restored to its former serene and composed state and so in short, thanks to the generosity of an ex,  I now find myself residing in a different home, in a different city, in a different….well lets just say with a different life.  I’m also looking for work,  you know of the proper paying kind, as writing isn’t paying the bills and whilst charity work is good for the soul it certainly isn’t good for the pocket!  Wish me luck as I once again tread along the path of servitude street and dispose of my creativity as I conform to corporate culture with my emancipating my freedom!   

Yes, things have changed, I now have a different view,  physically, mentally and metaphorically. I am calmer now than I have been for sometime and the future isn’t looking so bleak and depressingly blank,  although money is still so tight that noodles of the super variety are the staple food in the Shaw house, the future doesn't look quite so grim.  

© 2012 Copyright to Jason Shaw