Dreaming of Africa

I can get overwhelmed sometimes by all of the places I want to see. There’s musts and there’s maybes and there’s things I haven’t heard of yet. But since before I thought about any of this, I dreamed of Africa. The safaris and markets, the plains and Mt. Kilimanjaro. Where it seemed like the wild was still wild. And apparently, so did my sister, when I thought all she liked was cruises and the beach. We decided last year that we would plan a trip together.

The difference in our dreams is that my childhood was lounging in the living room watching The Lion King, Pringles crunching satisfyingly in my mouth. Her childhood was being sick. A strep infection to the kidneys. A kidney transplant at age six, my mom the donor. A long recovery. And then, life.

I’ve never met a person more grateful for life. Life may have a scientific definition, but it sits so simply in front of me, now. Life is all those possibilities that overwhelm. The choices and chances we get to make and take. The very thing that causes me stress when I think there is too much to do. The stress that stems from missing something in pursuit of something else. But what about missing everything? What about missing even the dream of Africa?

My sister was able to dream and do because of that kidney. With life comes more dreams, and with an ambitious person like my sister, more things accomplished. We knew it wouldn’t last forever, but after 22 years, you start to forget what forever means. This May we found out she needed another kidney transplant. I may be a nurse, but I don’t think it changes the pain or confusion of finding out a loved one is seriously sick. People say it does, but if that is so I don’t know how most people get up in the morning. A hurt like that is indescribable, and I don’t think any amount of knowledge makes it more bearable. My other sister and I went through the donor testing, and I was a match. A choice I feared I would have to make ended up being an easier choice than picking a nail polish color at a salon. I got the call that I was a close match and I felt so incredibly relieved that there was a solution.

I know that I obsess over whether my patients have lived full lives. Quite a few of my posts sound like they were written by a 100-year-old virgin, recluse. In this case, all I could think of was how the fullness of life was uncurling like a Moroccan tapestry with unknown dimensions. Little gold threads weaving and zig-zagging. It wasn’t what lay behind us, but what might lie ahead.

What beauty there is in being able to turn someone’s tapestry past another roll. I was honored to be that person for my sister. Before the surgery, she gave me a card saying we still had to see Africa. She shared with me the hope she needed so desperately, and once again I was amazed by my sister. She had been so weak for so long, and yet she gave me a piece of her hope that everything would be fine. On September 5th of this year, I donated my left kidney (aka chewbacca) to my sister.

People dream with anesthesia, despite what some may say. Right after the election, I had a patient that woke up sobbing because she had dreamt about Trump’s presidency. Sometimes dreams really do come true. Womp womp.

I didn’t dream, though. I had a break from dreaming, from worrying. Since May, I had been worrying constantly, which is nothing compared to how my sister must have felt. And then I woke up.

As a nurse, I still get uncomfortable when a patient groans from pain. It’s the constant noise that irritates me when I need to concentrate to help care for the patient. But when I woke up, all I could say was “ow”. Over and over again. But just like I’ve done a million times, the nurse managed my pain. Then, as if the next scene in the script of my life, my parents walked in to say my kidney was already working in my sister. She’d be out in an hour.

My heart rose like dough, and now I don’t think it will ever settle. A connection that I condoned, but will never understand. Dreams and ambitions doubled. It’s amusing to think of how I’ve let my options overwhelm me, when they are the very things for which my sister is grateful. Those options are life. Not the kind of life that pessimistic people refer to, or that Frank Sinatra sings about. The kind of life that started from a bang, a garden, a beaker, a seed. That. Is. Life.

My sister has a long road of recovery. Drugs that inhibit her immune system have helped her body to accept the kidney but have also limited her lifestyle. For a few months, she cannot be exposed to crowded public places. And she still doesn’t complain or feel sorry for herself. She dreams.

We dream. We still dream of Africa, which has become a promise. Africa when she’s ready. People say to live like you’re dying, but maybe sometimes it’s better to live like you’ve got a new life; to recognize your health. It’s like a second chance to carry out forgotten dreams, or even just to dust them off and let them unfold once again. Because missing one dream is better than missing them all. You’ve got options, we all do.