Life, or something close to it.

Chandra Maya Magar is old. She is 58. She is poor. She suffers from end stage renal disease which is just another way of saying both her kidneys are virtually non-functional. Her kidneys cannot remove the toxin that build up in her body. Her kidneys cannot produce urine. The excess water that builds up in her body has no escape. It starts collecting in her lungs causing her shortness of breath. She requires dialysis at least three times a week. The government provides dialysis two times a week for free. So that’s all she gets. That’s all she can afford. Every third day she is left gasping for life. At least once every week she is pushed to the brink of death and up to now somehow someway her doctors have been able to pull her back. Someday, within a few months or less, they won’t be able to. This is not a grim view of the future or a wannabe writer trying to dramatize for added effect, it is the truth. Unfortunate, yes but inevitable. She will die. She needs a transplant. She cannot even dare to imagine that she can afford that. Her life will amount to nothing. She will not be remembered by friends or family. Her husband is a drunk. Her son is tired of all the hassles that come with a dying mother. All they wish is she be released from her suffering and they from theirs. What happened in the first part of her life is lost. The second part of her life has been nothing but a struggle for survival. She has to fight for every breath. She looks upon the next day not with hope but with fear. She might have to be rushed to the emergency room. She might need a haemodialysis session, one she cannot afford. She might die. A life that will amount to nothing. Born in poverty, abandoned by a family, destroyed by a disease. She is fighting a lost cause. A painful death awaits. The only question that remains is what will it be that kills her? The failing kidneys, an abandoned life or poverty?