It was the day I was told that my kidneys were failing. None of the arguments about "why bad things happen to good people" were worth c*** to me on that day. More precisely, I still believe in god (lower case) but a god who has shown so little desire to care for me is one that I decided to stop caring about.
God gave me a childhood with physical abuse. I remember praying for about a week straight when I was about 13 for God to make my Daddy stop hurting me. God didn't listen then but I made it through alive to adulthood. Of course, such a tramatic childhood was bound to affect my adult years and I spent my young adulthood making poor choices and pursuing extreme lifestyles. It seemed like I'd gotten things more together as the years passed and I spent over 10 years creating a successful business and enjoying the lifestyle on the Olympic Peninsula.
Then during my second divorce, I got high blood pressure. That was when I stopped feeling well. Nobody knew then that hypothyroidism and high blood pressure are the two main markers for my familial kidney disease. But I did know that I had fibromyalgia and severe chronic fatigue syndrome. My type A lifestyle had to change. I closed my business, sold my building and received a grant to return to school to study teaching. The graduate program I attended was great and it was my intention to work with high-risk youth. I was enjoying myself but could only attend classes part-time because my energy level was low and dropping.
Heartbreakingly close to completion, I had to drop out. I was forced to go on public assistance and was living in sub-standard housing with few amenities. Of course, all this made me incredibly depressed as I've always been a goal-oriented person. I wasn't doing well and made the decision to move back to the Seattle metropolitan area in order to access better medical care. That's when testing discovered that my kidneys were going south. Thus began a regimen of hospitals, doctors, medical tests, dialysis and the necessity of having my blood drawn every time I turn around.
Dialysis is now required for my life to continue. That's briefly how I've gotten to this point and right now I'm too exhausted to post more.
