The American Spectator

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THAT TWO-DECADE KIDNEY FAILED, and then another transplant failed in two years, and here I am again using hemodialysis. (I will transition in about a month to a form of home dialysis called peritoneal dialysis.) There are some pains and drawbacks associated with hemo, but you deal with more boredom than agony. But, take my word for it, dialysis makes you feel a whole lot better than you feel in late-stage renal failure.

As my second transplant failed this time, I came very near giving up. I did not realize -- really did not know until now -- how thoroughly sick I had gotten, over how long a period. My health had declined steadily for almost four years, nearly two at the end of the first transplant, and throughout the two years of the second transplant, which never really kicked in the way it should have.

So here I am in Terri Schiavo days, and you will forgive me if in this whole intense storm I feel a whole lot more like a target than an advocate. With every dialysis treatment, I feel better, and I am grateful to be restored to my family in better shape than I have been for a long time.

Am I on life support? I suppose I am. Long before the Schiavo case broke on the national scene, when I felt at my worst, as I thumbed through a file on my desk, I found the health-care proxy I had signed before my second transplant. A health-care proxy is of course not a living will. Nonetheless, moved by some impulse I did not then understand, I tore it up. I find myself quite reluctant to sign another.

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Health Care, Law, Russia