Sirius Black

RECOVERY

I have a lot of free time — outside of the dialysis sessions. Stanford is paying me a stipend to be part of their ‘hemodialysis program’, and it is sufficient for my monthly expenses, even in Silicon Valley where the rents are exorbitant (see accounts like ‘The Slums of Palo Alto’ for details on that). I am allowed to work, teach, play, or do anything I want — as long as it does not blow my cover.

I enjoyed the work I did before becoming sick, but since recovery it is very hard for me to focus on it. I can’t seem to sit still without dozing off. Watching TV makes me fall asleep, and then I wake up at midnight ready for a new day. I guess that would be within character, but I prefer to take advantage of daylight as much as possible, so my hours become quite regular: I go to ‘ second-bed’ at about 10PM and wake at 4AM. That combined with the rest from the four hours of dialysis seems to be enough for my body and mind.

So I begin down very new paths for me: over time I learn about building houses, politics, professional driving, farming, and more. These are part of my normal life, and are known to all my friends and acquaintances. I also have a large collection of ‘hobbies’ that I don’t speak of normally. My hobbies help make The Gods ecstatic when they want a ‘quid’ or ‘ quo ’ .

As the weeks and months — go by, I more than recover. My sessions with Dr. A occur every other week in the guise of a blood draw test. They are short, but can be insightful.

“How are you doing this week Mark?”

“Good. I still carry a cane in case I need it, but I put all the walkers into storage. I walked about a mile around Lake Elizabeth

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with my sister. It was slow, but I only took a few breaks.”

“My sister went back to New York, but before she left we took a hike up St. Joseph’s in Los Gatos. I also walked around the Botanical Garden in San Francisco with my family.”

“I started playing tennis again, but it doesn’t seem to be any effort at all. I was pretty good at tennis before, but now I am not getting winded at all. I could play all day”

“That is excellent Mark. Your recovery has been almost miraculous. Most vampires have a long recovery timeline and many never become particularly strong. Immortal, yes, but not particularly notable otherwise.”

“Any new research on whether I can just bite people in the neck and forgo the whole dialysis thing?”

“Above our pay grades” she says with a smile. “See you in two weeks”

I am now well beyond recovery — and can do things I could not before. It is possible this is due to being a vampire, but it may also just be because I can seriously focus and can repeatedly fail with limited repercussions. I did chop up my hand pretty badly with a d*** handheld router, but V5 repaired my flesh and my healing abilities transformed the nasty injury into train-tracks of scars up my left hand. Apparently my body thinks healing is ‘just enough’ to function vs. making me pretty. I need to get some of that ‘glitter’ lucky vampires have.

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