Cheating death: for her son's sake

- Dennis Coke

My features have changed, says Erica.

THOSE WHO suffer from long bouts of illness, and who have the shadow of death hanging over them are the aged, who have lived long and satisfying lives. Or so we think.

The young and boundlessly energetic do not need to fear death.

How, then, does one account for 25-year-old Erica Hall, who has been living in death's shadow since the day in May, 1999, when she experienced renal failure?

Two years and three hospitalisations later, she remains afraid of sleeping, for fear that she will never wake. Still, she is determined to cheat the reaper for her son's sake.

Sitting beside six-year-old Chad, who knows as much about renal failure as any hospital worker, her scarred hands are exposed. Scar tissue on her right hand is one evidence of her marriage to the dialysis machine. The other is her small build. She has lost a lot of weight.

Erica recalls the day in May when, "under some stress" she realised that she was no longer seeing things clearly. "I felt as if I was under anaesthesia." At the doctor, her blood pressure was found to be so high that she was immediately admitted to Medical Associates Hospital. There she was diagnosed with renal failure.

Erica has spent every Monday and Thursday since then at the KPH where she is dialysed. She has had to say farewell to a job in sales. Now she can't apply for a job. "I am only available for work three days. I have no use to myself on Mondays and by Wednesday when I may be fully recovered, I face the prospect of going in for dialysis on Thursday." The disease is a very expensive one. The drugs alone cost $10,000 each month. The actual cost of dialysis is also beyond the pocket of many. Erica copes, she says, by the grace of God and by the support of her son's father.

"It's a whole new lifestyle. It's a change of life. It really plays on the brain. My features have changed. My friends pass me in the streets and don't know me. I have lost a lot of weight. I can't play with my son as how I would want," she states.

She is basically positive about the disease as she says it is better than terminal cancer. But, on many occasions, hope has been snatched away from her. In November 2000 she received a transplant, but her body rejected the organ which came from a cadaver. It was a very bad experience, both physical and psychologically. She gained 30 pounds in two weeks from steroid treatment and experienced physical pain which she begged God not to let her feel again.

However, by January of this year, she was diagnosed with pneumonia. Living on immuno-suppressant drugs, she became vulnerable to infection. She remembers, "One night I could not sleep. I was not breathing well." She was admitted to the KPH with water on the lungs. Her blood pressure again went off the charts as she laboured to breathe. "I was drowning," she said.

"I felt I had to hold on. I can't explain," Erica reports today. She recovered as hospital staff decided to dialyse her on a Sunday night. She came out of the hospital with bills of $200,000.

Currently she swings between counting her blessings and asking, why me? "The lesson I have learnt is that we take too many things for granted. The very air we breathe is a privilege.

"Sometimes I feel crazy. I compare myself to everyone." But, in the wee hours when sleep eludes her, she puts her thoughts into poetry. This helps. She also paints and does baskets from which she earns a small income.

On the good days Erica has big plans. She wants to finish a web design and computer programming course which was interrupted by her illness.

A graduate of Wolmer's Girls' School who participated in 'every sport' now passes through periods when she is unable to bathe herself and her son. Her son's father, her neighbours and her mother are her support system.

Her determination to live as long as possible, and a newly-minted belief in God, are her inspiration. "I fix myself up," she says. She hopes to, soon, share in creating a support group for victims of renal failure. What distresses her is that many people do not understand about the disease.

"They do not know that if I stop dialysing I will die," she says. Such a support group she said, could build public awareness and bring comfort to others like her who have lost friends and jobs due to the ravages of this disease.

"I am humbled. I no longer have ambitions and I am not ashamed to say that." Now she has more time for her son who she taught to read and who, at age 6, is computer literate, thanks to her. "The most important thing is to enjoy family and appreciate those around you," she says.

A.U.

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