Dialysis

The disease did not simply eat away at her kidneys.

The disease did not simply eat away at her heart.

The disease ate away at her core.

She suffered not because she had to be strapped into a machine for twelve hours a week, letting tubes and

infusions protect her from the toxins of everyday living.

She suffered because she could not live.

Once, she was in New York.

Once, she cared for her daughter and her daughter’s three children.

Once, she divorced the man that had made her life misery, freed herself to live independently for the very

first time.

And no sooner had she freed herself than she had fallen prison to her body.

She misses the little things. Cooking. Walking. Going to the grocery store without getting winded. Not

feeling perpetually weak. Having the strength to simply be.

Some days are better than others, she says. She has her family. She has her grandchildren. She has her

foreign movies that she loves to watch. And she carries on. Not in the way she ever would have expected.

Yes, she tiredly reminds herself, some days are better than others.

By: Nishika Navrange