Q: How’s the new job?

A: Let me take no more than 12 minutes on Sunday night to try to answer this question. I’ll feel better if I get all of this out of my system.

I haven’t been feeling too well since I started my new job. At first, I think I was feeling the effects of a kidney episode, perhaps an infection or a bleeding cyst. I was feeling feverish and queasy most of the time. When I wasn’t at work or at dialysis, I just wanted to sleep or do absolutely nothing other than watch Netflix.

Whatever the kidney episode was, it’s probably is in the past. Meanwhile, dialysis sessions had been hellish due to the deep freezes and cold sweats. Because of the tendency of dialysis to make me feel horrible and the recent illness, and the traveling I did about a month ago, I’ve skipped dialysis a fair amount of late. This, in itself, has probably made me feel more rundown than I might be feeling if I were regularly getting dialyzed three times of week.

So, for the past three weeks, I’ve been worrying about my health, first and foremost.

Then, when I spend a moment to collect my thoughts, I realize that my life just consists of going to work, going to dialysis, and resting. I desperately need to get involved in things and to connect with people. I’ve desperately needed to do these things for quite a long time. It’s usually seemed close-to-impossible. Lately, it’s felt pretty much impossible.

With every passing day, week, month, and year, I am more and more isolated from the world around me. Just like the muscles of my body seem to be atrophying as I undertake less and less physical activity, I am a withering social being. I always used to feel like an outsider. Now, more than ever, I feel cut off from the rest of civilization. I feel irreparably lost.

And time’s up. And that’s how the job is going.