Kidneys

My very sick client calls me as soon as I wake up. I haven’t put my glasses on yet and Connor is meowing loudly for his breakfast. He wants to order Nepro, nutritional shakes for people on dialysis with his food stamps but he can’t do it alone because you also have to provide a debit card to cover the fees and tip, about $11. I don’t actually have it either. After two separate cats at the vet last week, I have exactly $5 in the bank. But this is something the organization can reimburse so I call Misty and ask her to send it to me. “I hope someone gives me a kidney,” he says, “I don’t want to die like this.” In all his thousands of interactions with medical personnel, I can’t believe nobody’s explained this to him. “They don’t usually give kidneys to people who used to use drugs,” I tell him. “I should have lied,” he says, ruefully. I have a feeling they could have figured it out. “They also don’t give them to people with a history of non-compliance, because transplants are delicate, and if you don’t do everything exactly, they get rejected.” “I would take my medicine for that,” he says. “I know,” I tell him, “but they have seen you not taking it.” He accepts that with the quiet resignation of someone whose whole life has been filled with disappointments. “There are also not a lot of kidneys available,” I say. “There are a lot of dead people,” he observes. “A lot of people don’t sign up to be donors. I always ask when I help people with their IDs and a lot say no. Some say they are afraid of being kidnapped. I’ve been a donor for a long time and I’ve never been kidnapped.” He has made it to dialysis twice this week, both because of the efforts of people from our staff who went and helped him get dressed and out the door and into his Medicaid transport, and he is feeling better. I can hear a brightness in his voice that has been missing for a long time and the silly kid I first met twenty years ago at Sylvia’s is peeking through. “I tried to kidnap you a couple times,” he says laughing. “It didn’t go too well,” I tell him. “That’s because I like cats,” he says, “can’t kidnap anyone who takes care of cats.” By then the Nepro is ordered and he needs to get ready for dialysis, on his own this time, so I feed the rest of the cats and get on with the day.