Just after-- just after I finished treatment for cancer,
my kidneys failed.
And so I was on dialysis for a year.
And last July, I received a kidney transplant
from my youngest daughter.
I have four daughters and two sons.
And I think dialysis-- has anybody been on dialysis here?
Is anybody on dialysis or been on it?
It's a big drag is what it is.
And what's interesting to me is that one of the questions--
I mean there's a psychological thing.
You're sitting here in this chair
and the machine with your blood running through it
is next to you.
And this might be interesting.
We had a fire.
They told us what to do in case of fire.
And what they said was that you disconnect yourself
from the machine and run out of the dialysis facility
and leave your blood there.
If you need a transfusion, they'll
give you one out in the parking lot.
Well, I happen to be the kind of person--
I refuse to leave my blood.
I'm not leaving it.
I went in there with my blood.
I'm coming out with my blood.
So it was awful.
It was just awful.
And one of the questions they ask
is I guess if you've been on it about a week--
I was on it for three days a week five hours each day.
And I also taught.
I taught.
I taught during cancer also.
And one of the questions they ask
is so how do you like to help.
That's right.
And the question is not that much.
The answer is not a lot.
But anyway, all of these things happen.
It's called "dialysis."
Now in illness, I tend to try to have the medical people fix
the illness and the stuff.
And I want to fix the metaphor.
You know what I mean?
And the idea of kidney failure--
the kidneys are those things which rid the body of poison.
And I had lost so much.
I had lost so much by this time that I
think my kidneys-- the metaphor was my kidneys
didn't want to lose anything else.
And so it was even keeping that which would kill me.
So I talked to them.
And now I have--
they don't remove yours.
They just pile another one on top.
So my daughter and I standing together have four kidneys.
You know, I got three and she has one.
But anyway, "Dialysis."
"After the cancer, the kidneys refused to continue.
They closed their thousand eyes.
Blood fountains from the blind man's arm
and decorates the tile.
Somebody mops it up.
The woman over 90 cries for her mother.
If our dead were here, they would save us.
We're not supposed to hate the dialysis unit.
We're not supposed to hate the universe.
This is not supposed to happen to me.
After the cancer, the body refused to lose anymore.
Even the poisons were claimed and kept
until they threatened to destroy the woman they loved.
In my dream, a house is burning.
Something crawls out of the fire cleansed and purified.
In my dream, I call it light.
After the cancer, I was so grateful to be alive.
I am alive and furious.
Blessed be even this?"