Widening borders

It’s now fifteen days since the transplant and we find ourselves steadily widening our borders. Yesterday we went for a long walk in the town (Nancy had to replace the watch that was stolen last week, while I was looking for a broad-brimmed hat). Later in the day we walked to the Alkmaar hospital, bringing flowers and a box of Belgian chocolates to the nurses who took such good care of me during my 21 months as a dialysis patient.

Today, in the late afternoon, we did our food shopping for the first time since coming home, walking to the supermarket we prefer -- the local Albert Heijn, on the far side of the North Holland Canal. In recent days this was a chore our daughter Anne had been doing it for us. Anne -- who had come over to vacuum the house and do laundry -- was anxious that we would carry the groceries home in sacks, exactly the kind of lifting we are under doctor’s orders not to do for six weeks, but we reassured her we would use our shopping cart on wheels. (The kids don’t trust us for a moment to take it easy.)

Nancy spent more time at her computer today than she had on any day since coming home. She wanted to do a little more work on yesterday’s posting to A Tale of Two Kidneys and submit it to the NCR Handelsblad for possible publication. She also wrote o the Dutch Kidney Foundation, the Dutch Minister of Health, and the Vice Premier of the Netherlands, André Rouvoet, in each case attaching “Crossing the Line from No to Yes.” Nancy has definitely slipped into campaigning mode.

Walking down the main street of central Alkmaar, the Langestraat, this afternoon, we both felt like people whose eyes had suddenly been widened. The sun was setting. What little sunlight there still was couldn’t reach the cobblestones but had gilded the thin spire of the town hall, one of Alkmaar’s oldest buildings. We stopped and stared like children dazzled by a Christmas tree.