Glamour, Interrupted by Steven Cojocaru

Author:Steven Cojocaru [Steven Cojocaru]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061744259
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Kidney Is the New Black

Dear friends, I’d like to introduce you to Annabelle.

Annabelle is the love child of

Miss Abby Finer and Mr. Steven Cojocaru.

This little bundle of love was born on January 14, 2005,

weighing approximately 5 ounces and

approximately 12 centimeters long.

Her color was a healthy deep pink, and she was in robust

health.

One of the serious, realistic risks for any kidney transplant patient is that their organ might not work. For the first six months to a year, a newly transplanted kidney is very vulnerable to rejection; it’s the most delicate time, a period where you are on pins and needles, and the further out you are from surgery the better your chances are of keeping it long term. After a year, the percentage rate of people whose transplanted kidneys work for the rest of their lives is very high, but there’s never any guarantee. The doctors had drilled this into me, but I decided I had a solution: I was going to name the kidney. How could anything possibly go wrong to a kidney named Annabelle, a name that sounded like the plucky heroine of a children’s book?

Sometimes, I felt like Annabelle had a life of her own. I would read her passages from Pat the Bunny and talk to her: “You’re going to grow up to be a fine, strong kidney, my little Belle! I promise I will never drink tap water, only the finest purified water from the artesian wells in the Yaqara Range of the Nakauvadra Mountains!” I quit the alcohol and cigarettes like the doctors told me to. I would rub her, a lot. Occasionally, I would direct my friends to greet Annabelle, just to keep her happy: “Here’s my beautiful kidney. Say hello to my little apricot!”

So far, Annabelle seemed to be pleased with the attention. By the middle of February, a month after my surgery, I was well on the path to recovery. My twice-weekly visits to the doctor had grown easier and easier, and the results were uniformly positive: The kidney was functioning perfectly. I counted myself lucky. Everything was clicking, even though I was still extremely weak.

My doctor had insisted that I take at least two months off of work to recover, but by week five I was dying to go back. It was the middle of the awards season, and it was killing me that I would watch the red carpet parade from my couch. The People’s Choice Awards, the SAG awards, the Grammy’s—I missed them all. It was physically painful to not be a guest at the party, like having my arm hacked off.

On the morning after my transplant, in Cedars-Sinai, I had pronounced my recovery plans to Shari: “My goal is to work at the Oscars,” I told her. But by mid-February, that still seemed like an unlikely proposition. I could barely walk up the stairs of my house, let alone sashay down the red carpet.

One morning, Linda Bell Blue, the executive producer of Entertainment Tonight and The Insider, called me to check in and see how I was doing.

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