Recovery

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.

RECOVERY

May

I have a lot of free time outside of the dialysis sessions. Amasa is paying me a small stipend to be part of their ‘hemodialysis program’ , and it is sufficient when combined with my wife’s income for our 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 draining 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’ .

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 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 take any physical 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.

The first interesting ability I discovered was when studying my wounds after dialysis. The dialysis needles are removed at the end of the session, and you now have two holes into your blood stream. Unfortunately, that blood stream finds those holes a viable direction to travel (whether patient or vampire it is the same at the end of a session).

So the dialysis technicians ‘plug the holes’ with a lot of gauze and tape. After a few hours, the holes seal and you can take the pressure-bandage off.

Unfortunately, it is possible to miss the hole with the gauze. If this happens, blood starts spurting everywhere. This is a major reason dialysis patients have to wait after their session: to make sure they don’t spray their windshields from the inside when they drive home.

The first time this happened to me, I looked at spraying blood in a bit of horror. I wear a short-sleeved shirt for dialysis, so the blood was just shooting down my arm (the needles are aimed ‘upward’ when inserted) and not actually inconveniencing me. But getting bathed in blood is a bit disconcerting at first. The nurses simply cleaned me up, found the right spot, and tried again.

The second time the spraying happen, I intensely focused on the blood. This was a bit risky because I have previously passed-out when concentrating intensely on wounds, but this time the result was very different. I could ‘ see ’ the blood a bit more vividly than my eyes were seeing it. Or at least, more than my eyes previously would see it. It was as if the blood was glowing. This was interesting, and a bit psychedelic.

Beyond seeing blood by focusing on it intensely, I could move it. Not very far, and not very much (no elevator scene from the Shining) so it wasn’t clear what use this would be. But I still found it fascinating. It was as if I was playing with rain-drops, except they were a deep red.

“Good morning Dr. A. ” I greet the doctor with.

“Good morning Mark”

“I can see and move blood”

“Well… yes… it is a visible, non-toxic, liquid. But I am guessing you don’t mean that?”

“I can see blood even in the dark. I don’t need light to see it. I can even see it beneath skin. Apparently lead, wood, and concrete get in the way, but skin does not.”

“Well, that is unusual, but not unheard of”

“Other vampires can see blood?”

“Yes. There are some abilities that some vampires have. They aren’t very common, but they are also not unique.”