Bleeding Fiction

My mother's life is currently defined by a nebulous set of fluctuating "numbers." They measure the familiar statistics of blood pressure and white blood cell count, as well as the levels of obscure chemicals that even those of us with backgrounds in Latin or Greek are hard-pressed to trace the roots of. Her doctors do this all by sticking her with a syringe and drawing blood from one of the veins in her arm, the search for which is often in ve... is sometimes pointle... is many times futile. It's a strange thing indeed to watch doctors draw blood from between my mother's toes, as if she's some sort of inverse heroin addict with a need to hide her track marks. Regardless, when her numbers are "good" (which can mean high or low, depending on the particular trait in question), my mother's healthy; when her numbers are "not so good" (the doctors never use the word "bad"), she's not.

Recently her numbers have been "a little troublesome," so she trekked off to the hospital for a few tests. Several stabs with the needle and an overnight stay later, the doctors had some good news and some bad news. The good news was that they were able to halt the rejection of her kidney. The bad news is that she has diabetes. So saying, they welcomed her into the world of twice-daily blood tests and insulin shots. Self-administered, mind you, which isn't so great. My mother's not exactly the most... erm... responsible person when it comes to taking her medicine. She's just a little absent-minded these days. Fortunately, my father's anal-retentiveness and pathalogical worry will likely keep her sticking herself with the needle at the appropriate times. Huh. Imagine that being useful.

In theory, say the doctors, the diabetes was caused by the steroids she's on (some insanely high dosage that would apparently make a professional body-builder blush) and will go away once they reduce the dosage of steroids. I didn't know diabetes was the sort of thing that "went away," but apparently it is. Or could be. That's sort of interesting.

So, the prognosis? Bad, but not as crappy as it could be and heaps better than the time we thought my mother's nurses accidentally gave her hepatitis. Now my mother gets to wait. She's good at that by now.