Influence

ROOFS

I drive to Home Depot — to talk with David about a mass purchase of siding, lumber, bolts, etc. My goal is to make twenty ‘very small’ houses. I recently acquired a light-industrial unit off Old Middlefield, and believe we can build twenty units in about a week. Probably two weeks, but the target is one.

There is no problem with the order, and the price is fine: about half of what Virginia gave for the units, so the other half can be used to pay for the labor involved. If we get it done in two weeks, that will be fine. We might sell some of the units to defray costs, but the bulk will be donated: given to people living in tents or worse. ❦

By the time I am done — It is noon, so I head to dialysis. My clinic is in Menlo Park, almost within the Meta campus. I was on Facebook when it first came to California, but got off it when the social value of the social network became very suspect.

Dialysis patients get hooked up to a hemodialysis machine using either their catheter or the two dialysis ‘sewing needles’ described above. I used a catheter for about six months, but progressed to direct artery access, which looks the same as a fistula. The flow rate can be higher with the needles, so I can support all the patients in my shift. For the first six months I needed to have another vampire (Susan) with me, but now I can go it alone.

My machine is different from everyone else’s, but that isn’t visible to anyone who works in the main room. There is a technician controlling flows between patients and me, so people get their own (cleansed) blood back. I feel like the RNs know something is unusual, but they keep their concerns and questions to themselves.

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Josephine ‘wires’ me up, and for the next four hours I am trapped. Dialysis can be very draining for normal patients: cramps, sleepiness, etc. It is draining for me also. I commonly need to sleep for most of it. Given my dialysis shift starts at noon, it is somewhat ironic. I need to sleep for a while at night too, so maybe I am just half-vampire?

“No, you are not exactly a slave — but you are also not free. From now until you wish to die, you will need to do dialysis with a Stanford-approved clinic.”

“Can’t I just bite people on the neck or something?”

“You can try, but there isn’t any evidence that would work. And you would likely end up dying in jail”

“So, as long as I do dialysis, you will help me to continue to exist?”

“Yes”

“No other quid-pro-quos in this contract?”

“No, but we might like your help at times”

“Yes… master. Am I going to say no to the Gods?”

“I suspect you might, at least sometimes. That is really up to you… and how happy you want your gods to be “

“Ecstatic?”

I return to M5 from the ICU — except now I am part of the

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clandestine V5 clinic (an ‘M’ contains a ‘V’ hiding in plain sight). My diet changes: I can now eat more kinds of foods. This is all just practice for my cover story; I don’t actually digest any of it.

But to be compliant, I should avoid foods rich in phosphate, never eat foods that could contain bacteria, keep my sodium intake low, and so on. Basically standard practices for a liver and kidney transplant patient. A living person’s biome needs to be balanced, and without a liver and kidney monitoring and adjusting to what you are consuming… tests, diet changes, and medications take their place.

It is critical that I understand all of this to keep my cover, especially because one of the addiction-recovery meetings I go to focuses on liver and kidney issues. For me to attend, I need to know a bunch of tests, activities, and experiences that an end-stage patient would know. This is beyond just dialysis, and includes regular testing of all kinds of things. Some of these tests collectively produce a MELD (model for end-stage liver disease) score. This determines your priority for a transplant, so my score has to match needing dialysis, but not be so high that a transplant (or death) would be imminent. I pick 21 as my normal MELD score, and my test results are set up to match that. In California, a 21 (out of 40) means it will take years before I am offered a transplant.

The layers of lies are to keep vampires relatively secret. My normal doctor (Dr. J), is outside Stanford, so she does not know anything is unusual… except for the story of catastrophic liver and kidney failure.

I am not allowed on roofs — because — in spite of being a ‘vampire’ — I am not particularly coordinated, strong, fast, or anything special. When I am discharged from V5 and Stanford, I am in worse shape than I was before going into the ER in March, let

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alone the years before when I was in pretty good shape. I get up and move very slowly, and I can’t get up at all without help if I sit on a couch or the floor… or fall. I can make sudden movements sideways, when I had no intention of doing so. I am not a ninja vampire. This is common for people who spend a month in the hospital: your body atrophies every day you spend in that comfortable bed. So my physical condition is consistent with my hospital stay. If I did fall off the roof, a lot of inconvenient questions would come from to those who saw it… or me after it.

But I am recovering very quickly. My physical therapy sessions end after only three of them. I shuffle along faster in my walkers: I have both two-wheeled (for inside) and four-wheeled (to go the distance and bring a chair to boot) walkers that I need less and less every day. Hemodialysis is very draining initially, but within a month I can drive myself to the sessions. My family is freed from watching and helping me 24x7, and they can get on with their lives as I get on with mine.

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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 10 p.m. and wake at 4 a.m.. 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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