No topic is off-limits when they meet in the parking lot of a Vons supermarket in Mar Vista, where they meet multiple times a week. Not the bleak medical outlook for one of the original members of the coffee klatch, David Mays, 70.
Paul Morgan, a 45-year-old Klatch regular, stated that it is one of our main conversation subjects.
Mays, a cancer survivor, has a host of illnesses, such as diabetes, failing kidneys, and a failing heart. However, despite the fact that dialysis could prolong his life, he has consistently told me that he does not want the therapy since we first met about two years ago.
“I understand, as it takes up a significant portion of your day,” remarked Morgan, a local educator. People assume you spend fifteen minutes at dialysis before heading directly to work. However, it’s actually a part-time position.
Lopez, Steve
Born in California, Steve Lopez has been writing columns for the Los Angeles Times since 2001. He is a four-time Pulitzer finalist and has received over a dozen national journalism honors.
He would have to spend four hours a day, three times a week, at a dialysis facility as part of his treatment, Mays explained.
For as long as I live.
Clatcher Kit Bradley, 70, who lives in a van close to the grocery store with his dog, Lea, said, “I don’t think I could do it.”
Mays was living in his Chevy Malibu in a downtown garage that was a part of the Safe Parking L.A. program when I first met him in October 2023. After that, Mays moved into an apartment in East Hollywood, where he currently resides, but his health has been becoming worse.
According to Dr. Thet Thet Aung, a Mays nephrologist at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles, he is in Stage 5.
According to Aung, death may be near for these patients. She informed me that she has spoken with Mays on numerous occasions on his treatment alternatives, such as self-administered dialysis at home or in a clinic. However, she cautioned, not everyone responds well to dialysis, and we honor a patient’s decision when they make an educated one.
Mays’s perspective on death is surprisingly positive. Approximately 25% of Medicare’s enormous expenditures are spent on patients in their final year of life, many of whom opt for life-extending medical operations, and multibillion-dollar businesses cater to people who wish to look younger and live longer.
In my experience with him, Mays has been pragmatic rather than pessimistic. He has told me that his wish to let nature take its course has nothing to do with bravery, religion, or spirituality.
He asserted that it goes beyond such things.
He clarified that he is content with his destiny because he has friends, love, and support.
I recently visited his flat and observed Mays filling a weekly pill organizer with medication from over 20 vials.
As he placed medications that looked like little jelly beans, he remarked, “I could almost do this in my sleep.” One for his heart, another for his kidneys, one for his blood pressure, and so forth.
Each container contained eighteen tablets. He added that none of that would help him with his problems.
To maintain a consistent level, you simply need to keep doing it, he explained. I don’t feel particularly good about taking this medicine.
Although they are saddened by his illness, May’s two female friends appreciate his decision to forego dialysis.
“I don’t want him to suffer just to please other people,” Jennifer Nutt, 47, of Merced, May’s daughter, said.
Nutt didn’t have a relationship with Mays until lately, and her parents separated when she and her brother were small. According to Nutt, she has experienced her own hardships, such as homelessness.
In the fall of 2024, the father and daughter started to get along.
We talk for hours every day. It’s like an endless celebration of catching up, and they’ve found that they have similar characteristics and interests, as well as a wry sense of humor and pragmatism.
According to Nutt, we prefer large books and big words.
The other woman is Helena Bake, a registered nurse from Perth, Australia, whom Mays lovingly calls “Precious.” Bake, then eighteen, was working in a café he frequented with friends when they first met in 1985, while Mays was in London. Mays grew close to Bake’s entire family after she relocated to Australia and paid her numerous visits.
Bake, who is unsurprised by May’s attitude toward his declining health, said he was nice. He’s always so upbeat and practical. His perspective on the world and the people in his life is amazing. He has a gift like that.
In order to assist pay for his cremation and send his ashes to Bake to be dispersed in his favorite locations across Australia, Mays, who barely makes ends meet on Social Security, has created a GoFundMe page.
One of May’s favorite hobbies, the get-togethers in the Vons parking lot, has recently been disrupted by his numerous doctor’s appointments and the occasional trip to the emergency room.
For many years, Mays worked as a live-in elder care provider in the Mar Vista region. He would occasionally run across Morgan in the grocery store strip mall or Bradley at a park. They started hanging out beside May’s car and getting coffee at approximately seven in the morning a few years ago. A Vons employee called Elvis comes out for a smoke break, Bradley’s dog frequently jumps into the car, and other people come and go.
Morgan mentioned the other day that my cousin, who had diabetes, called my mother one day and declared, “I’m not doing it anymore.” He told the klatch that his mother wasn’t initially supportive, but after hearing her nephew’s justification, she changed her mind. In that case, who could criticize someone for their decisions?
According to Mays, there is a two- to eight-year waiting list for kidney transplants. Let’s imagine a kidney became available [in] four or five years. Your body may reject it, in which case you will have to start over. About a year and a half ago, I told Precious about this, and she told me that I needed to hang up right away because I needed time to think about it. She said, “I understand,” when we spoke again.
Mays stated that he does not wish to be a prisoner of a process, such as a machine.
You must continue doing this indefinitely. He remarked, “It’s not like you’re on it for two or three years.” The remainder of your life is it.
A former guitarist named Bradley remarked, “I’ve seen people who were on dialysis.” I suppose I’d want to be straightforward: if I have to go, I have to leave.
According to Morgan, his father passed away last year due to kidney issues and refused drastic procedures to prolong his life.
Morgan stated, “It’s not like he was suicidal at all, just like David isn’t.” The problem with David is that he has always been so determined. I’ve never had a conversation with him where I thought we could sway him or that he was undecided.
Mays claimed that when he initially objected to dialysis, medical professionals placed him in a room with a film that described the procedure.
The final straw, according to Mays, was that I watched the entire thing. When I’m done looking at it, I’m simply like, “Oh my god, no.”
“He doesn’t want to die,” Mays stated. It s that he wants to live on his terms.
The irony of the whole thing is, it s all the people that I have around me they re the reason I m willing to go like this. What I get from them in the way of being uplifted and loved, well, when you have all that, you can deal with anything.
He has his klatch buddies, he has Precious, he has his daughter in his life again.
With people around that give a damn about you, care about you, you can deal with death, you can deal with dying…. And I told my doctors I would rather live a shorter period of time, but with what I feel to be some decent quality of life, than live a longer period of time and be miserable. And I would be miserable on dialysis, Mays said.
Plus, I m 70. It ain t like I m 30 and there s so much life to live. I am the age that I am, and I would like to go further, sure, but it has to close out soon. And I m fine with that, because I have lived.
More to Read
-
Voices
-
-
Voices
