The Future’s Not So Bright But At Least It’s Oranje

Sorry about the terse posting lately; despite the avalanche of fast breaking political news I’ve been more than a little self absorbed, because I’m waiting to hear the results of blood tests. As long time readers will know I’ve been quite ill for a long time and I need a kidney transplant. These tests will show whether I can absorb the anti-rejection drugs or not. If not (which is a distinct possibility given my medical history) there’s no transplant, so as you can imagine the results are pretty crucial. I’m stressing a bit.

I lie. I’m stressing a lot.

That this is going on against a background of spiralling global economic political and social chaos and a general feeling that it’s all spinning horribly out of control is not helping, dammit. What do you mean, solipsistic? Of course the whole world’s naturally arranged around my own personal affairs…

We’ve been lucky so far with the credit crunch but we’re no more secure than anyone else, and because of my health we’re a little more insecure than most. At the moment the economic crisis is not an immediate threat (one of the upsides of bank mergers is the need to merge IT systems) though of course that could change at any moment; however, I think we’re as well prepared as anyone can hope to be. Which is to say not really.

What it’s actually boiling down to for me on a personal level right now, as it is for so many others, is insomnia and rabid anxiety. Sitting in the dark, wondering with sick dread what will happen next -will our health insurance company fold? What about the mortgage? What about the bank – shall I take out all the loose cash and hide it? Shit – what if the hospital has its funds in Iceland? But most of all, like every parent ever, I worry about my kids. What will happen to them? No generation can hope to know the future they bequeath to their kids; they can only do their best and hope, but we’ve done much, much less than our best and the future we’re giving our kids is potentially no future at all.

Because the future is here already. We’re in it now. This is it. We made it, aren’t you proud? Every trope of dystopian speculative fiction, every grimy Ridley Scott image and mad Gilliam fantasy is coming true – just look around. Political balkanisation, religious schism-driven conflicts, financial fractures, mass debt peonage and slavery, permanent war and the emergence of an an ultra rich, oppressive global elite – it’s all there. We’re using fiction as a handbook, not as entertainment.

It comes as no surprise that many of the foremost proponents of waterboarding are ’24’ fans; neither is it surprising that wingnuts are into transhumanism or that they love Arnie in The Terminator; nor is it a coincidence that Joe Haldeman’s ‘The Forever War’ is about to made into a movie. Art reflects life and vice versa, egg, chicken, chicken, egg…. Such are the trite observations one’s led into at 3am.

But I know all this meandering is just so much displacement; what I’m really worried about is dying. Not the actual dying itself – it’s a wonder I’m still here as it is, having so very nearly shuttled off this mortal coil so many times before through cancer and heart failure and what have you. I take a licking but I keep on ticking, but even I’ll have to go at some point. (The doctors writing ‘terminal kidney failure’ on all my test forms might also have given me a clue.)

No: what I’m concerned about is not death itself but how long will it be, and when and where. I want some certainty; what happens if I do this or what happens if I do that? A person needs to make plans. However, trying to pin down Dutch doctors is like nailing jelly to a wall. No-one will make a decision, everything’s by consensus, no one’s ever definite about anything. There are no guarantees about anything, I know, but I would like some sense of the odds, at least.

It boils down to this: if I don’t have a transplant, I’ll die, either slowly as a prisoner of dialysis machines or more quickly of kidney failure if I can’t have dialysis (which is also a possibility given my medical history). Even a transplant itself, should it be possible, is not a miracle cure; were I to survive big surgery again and the kidney not be rejected, it would nevertheless mean a short lifetime of strict adherence to medical protocols and a rigid treatment regime, and the ever-present possibility of infection and/or rejection at any point thereafter, this in addition to potentially fatal preexisting conditions. So if I do have a transplant I’ll die, just less soon and with more hassle.

Not a good place to be in a world falling apart, if indeed that’s what’s happening, though it’s certainly how it looks from the perspective of a cold and dark autumnal early morning.

But at least I do have choices. For the moment all my medical care, prescriptions, surgery and hospital costs are all covered by insurance that’s still reasonably priced. For a sick woman I’m probably one of the most privileged there is; I have access to clean water, adequate food, power and good medical care. Millions don’t, even in what passes for the developed world; looked at rationally I haven’t really got anything to complain about.

Also, this being Holland I have the option, should I wish it, to make the choice to leave the world at a time and by a method of my own choosing. That’s something that gives me an enormous amount of comfort. But sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof; it’s not a consideration yet. But until I get those test results, or at least some certainty of sorts, I’ll be awake at 3am again and again, and millions of others with me. They need certainty too, if for different reasons.

Edited slightly 18/10 for grammatical sense and speeling. Any remaining mistakes just go to show my illiteracy.