H.B.

 H.B.

When HB levels are too low
And one's height is 6ft 2,
It only rises 4ft 6
Which makes me feel quite blue.

It's difficult to walk around,
To love and live and laugh.
One's capacity for life in fact
Is really cut in half.

The trouble is one has to wait
Until it's really low,
Until one's feeling really ill.
It's how it is you know.

I tend to need a lot, you see,
Transfusion's what I mean.
The problem is the iron
That's building up in me.

All my fellow patients
They have iron once a week,
But I have stuff called Desferol
Which keeps my iron weak.

But soon I'll have a transplant
Of H6 I'll have enough.
I won't be sitting here no more
And feeling quite so rough.

by Timothy Ward, 1953-1987
A COLLECTION OF VERSE,
OR DIALYSIS DITTIES

 INDIVIDUAL
|
INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES             
HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC     
SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL
|
GROUP

Timothy 'Timbo' & Elizabeth	kidney - nephrotic syndrome organ failure transplant [3], operations [27] h.b.
Ward 'live-related' history ...	Universal Access to Health Least Developed Nations British Kidney Patient Association Kidney Care UK

My source: 

 

Tim's book as above, no publisher, or copyright listed, but the foreword, signed by Elizabeth Ward, November 2001, includes:

"Timbo was diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome at the age of 13 and three years later had to turn his back on much of the joy and excitement of youth to become dependent for his life on thrice weekly dialysis. Despite endless visits to hospital clinics and a number of admissions for necessary if unpleasant procedures, we hung a "business as usual" notice around his neck and on reaching adulthood he decided to keep it there.

He very much resented being ill and lived each day as if [it] were to be his last. His career as a dialysis/transplant patient spanned 17 years receiving treatment which consisted of three transplants, two cadaveric and one live-related, 27 operations requiring a general anaesthetic and eight and a half years on dialysis. ...

His legacy was in the form of the British Kidney Patient Association since without him it might never have existed. ..."

Remembering THJ & MJ  too: thanks for Tim's book of poems.