There’s something humbling about having a fistula that’s grown to 10mm wide — a vessel bigger than anything nature ever intended for my arm. For perspective, most arteries in the arm are only 2–5mm. A 10mm vessel is the size of a major central vein or a small artery that feeds the body’s core. It’s not just a vein anymore. It’s a lifeline. A surgically‑built highway that carries the blood that keeps me here, fighting, hoping, living.
And at the end of every dialysis session, that lifeline ends up in the palm of my wife’s hand.
She’s not holding my hand in the traditional sense. Her fingers aren’t laced with mine. There’s no picture‑perfect moment. Instead, her hand is pressed firmly against that 10mm vessel — the access point that keeps me alive — applying the pressure that protects me from bleeding, complications, or worse.
It’s not the soft kind of touch people imagine when they think of holding hands.
But in its own way, it means even more.
Because when she presses on that fistula, she’s literally holding the place where my life flows. She’s steadying the spot that carries every heartbeat. She’s caring for the part of me that medicine created but love sustains.
Some couples hold hands on walks or across dinner tables.
We hold on in dialysis chairs, in the tired moments, in the places where life feels fragile.
Her hand on my arm reminds me that love isn’t always gentle. Sometimes it’s firm. Sometimes it’s practical. Sometimes it’s the kind of touch that keeps you grounded when your body is worn out and your spirit is stretched thin.
Dialysis takes a lot out of me. But this moment — her hand, her steadiness, her willingness to step into the hard part — gives something back. It gives comfort. It gives peace. It gives connection. It reminds me that even in the parts of life that don’t look beautiful, love can still be beautiful.
My fistula may be 10mm wide, but the space her love fills is so much bigger.
In that moment, when her hand is on my arm, I’m reminded that my life isn’t just in the hands of doctors or machines — it’s in hers too. Not because she has to, but because she chooses to.
And that choice means everything.
When Love Holds On in the Hard Places
