Alex, I hope that you've continued to heal since you wrote this post nearly 18 months ago! I laughed when I read that you didn't know you were in kidney failure. I had a similar moment, as I sat on my couch with my long oxygen "leash" that tethered me to 24/7 oxygen and read that I had Respiratory Failure! "Holy crap---I didn't know I had respiratory failure!" I said to my husband. He chuckled and picked up my oxygen hose and said, "No? What was your first clue?" (He'd had months to process that information, but I'd only been aware for a couple of weeks!)

I'm glad that you're taking pictures. I am doing the same; I even saved a "spare" tracheotomy set that I found in my bags of supplies from the hospital; it's a concrete example of what my body went through, even though my mind was often far away.