Good day to you all. My name is Beth and my dear, beloved father was diagnosed with kidney failure this past August. My father and I have been amazingly close through my adult life, and back in August when I finally made him go to the emergency since he had been so sick for weeks, we had no idea that we were beginning on a journey that would have no end. The doctors initially told me he was not going to make it and there was nothing they could do. But they did not count on how stubborn we were both going to be about refusing that kind of news. Facing a parent's mortality changes a person forever - in ways I am just truly beginning to understand. But even more so as he is also my friend and confidant. We, yes we, spent the better part of August, September, October, and November in hospitals fighting like hell for survival. Dad pulled through and is now on dialysis, which is a horrible, draining animal. But it is also what is keeping him alive. Each day I am finding a more profound duality to the whole thing. Dialysis makes him feel so terrible, and it is painful, and it is saving him. But he is doing better and better all the time and we are trying to find hope for a brighter future. So anyway, I would love to share in your tribe with you if you will have me. I was so happy to find you here. I have close friends to talk to, but if you haven't been there, then you just don't get it. And I have actually found that people are weird about talking about something like a chronic illness when they don't have an understanding of it, like they didn't know what to say when I would call or send an e-mail. No one understood I just wanted them to be the same people they always were and talk about the same stuff. I guess it was scarey for them. So in a nutshell, that is my story of why I seeked you out and how I came to be here on this tribe with you. Thank you for letting me visit.
Beth