ABSTRACT
It is the end of the afternoon. The new arrival, a little boy clutching Captain Scarlet, takes one look at me and turns to the nurse. ‘Mummy,’ he says, ‘is that man dead?’ I perk up immediately. ‘Of course I’m bloody not!’ I cry. Nor am I Captain Scarlet, though my blood is having an out-of-body experience. It is being pumped out by my heart and drawn into a machine via a soft plastic tube. This is where most people with no kidneys end up. There is a variety of ailments that can get you here. I have polycystic kidney disease, formerly a killer. In fact, if it weren’t for my mechanical organ, that little boy would have been dead right. Welcome to my secret life.
