Category: Kidney Disease

The Waiting Game

11/11/2023

I enjoy fiction that gives me an insight into lives different to my own, while illuminating a universal aspect of the human condition. In my writing, I hope to do something similar for my readers. I knew I could do the former in my current WIP – although wasn’t sure it would interest others until an extremely useful one-to-one with an experienced industry professional – but doubted my character’s situation was relatable.

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Blanket or Blank It? #99WordStories

24/9/2023

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At last week’s appointment I realised that, once again, I’d misunderstood a part of my medical regime. It’s ironic that the system that delivers the lab reports from my blood tests to my inbox prior to meeting my nephrologist is called Patients Know Best. Despite her efforts to learn to interpret up to two dozen readings without a grounding in biochemistry, this patient clearly doesn’t.

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Canned fruit and commitment

27/7/2023

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When I was growing up, we always had tinned fruit as part of Sunday tea. In those days, I’d never met a peach or a pineapple that didn’t come out of a can. Now that we can get mangoes, papaya and kiwifruit from an ordinary greengrocer, I hadn’t eaten the tinned stuff until I was in hospital last year.

I assumed it was a matter of economics and convenience that there was no fresh fruit on the menu. I soon learnt there were medicinal reasons too. Tinned fruit is lower in potassium and you don’t want to overdo the potassium if your kidneys are kaput.

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Nationalism’s victims: Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

28/6/2023

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Twelve-year-old Bird doesn’t know why his mother disappeared three years ago. He doesn’t know why he and his father had to move from their large house to a tiny flat at the university, nor why his father lost his prestigious academic job. It can’t have anything to do with PACT, can it? The Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act was introduced to rescue the USA from the economic and social crisis around the time that he was born.

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Hope is an ash-hued sky #99WordStories

25/4/2023

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This week’s flash fiction challenge reminds me how I’m often slightly out of step with the majority. As I puzzled over the prompt the colour of hope, I realised that many people consider hope a virtue that you can have more or less of, whereas, for me, it only makes sense as a transitive verb. Although I do quote readers who describe my fiction as hopeful, I don’t think of myself in such terms. It’s not that I’m hopeless (in either sense of the word), but I direct my hope to specific things.

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Overburdened: The Plimsoll Line, Starling Days, Cat and the Dreamer, Unsettled Ground & Sorrow and Bliss

5/4/2023

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Five recent reads about characters facing life challenges that are almost too much to bear: bereavement; chronic illness; relationship crises and more. See what you think.

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On World Kidney Day, I have some advice for my year-ago self

8/3/2023

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This time last year, I knew next to nothing about kidney disease. I knew next to nothing about the vital role of healthy kidneys in keeping us well. I’m sure you’ll appreciate that a shock diagnosis on a hospital ward wasn’t the easiest way to address those gaps in my knowledge. The learning curve seems steeper when you’re already befuddled and out of breath.

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A year of SMART objectives or a year of letting go?

27/1/2023

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When I emailed my newsletters with a foretaste of what to expect from me in 2023, I thought I’d do something similar here on Annecdotal, plus a more detailed list of goals to monitor privately myself. So how come I’ve almost reached the end of January without doing that?

I’ve always felt a little uneasy about setting concrete objectives when I don’t possess a crystal ball. But this is the year I’ve got a marketing plan stuffed with SMART objectives for my next novel. Yet I’m more conflicted than ever.

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Severe illness from the inside: Body Kintsugi & Rocking with the Reaper

7/10/2022

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Here are two recent reads about a woman’s experience of serious illness and associated treatments and surgeries. The first is a translated novella and the second a chunky mélange of memoir, popular psychology and self-help. But, genre aside, what distinguishes them is their tone: the first, distant and matter-of-fact; the second, unashamedly emotional. See which you prefer.

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I’m mourning my lost identity as physically healthy

25/7/2022

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I pulled out of a leading one walk through Jane Eyre territory when Mr A remarked I was breathless just getting from a hospital bed to the bathroom. I pulled out of the second (scheduled for tomorrow) when, although much improved, I realised I couldn’t walk, talk and carry a backpack simultaneously, especially not uphill. Now even the dog walkers have noticed I’m tramping the fields uncharacteristically slowly. How to explain to acquaintances that’s not the real me?