Yesterday was Jayaram's last day with me. Almost six years back, when I was desperate for a renal replacement therapy better than conventional in-center hemodialysis, Dr. Girish Narayen, my nephrologist had suggested daily nocturnal home hemodialysis. The whole magnitude of doing something no one in the country was doing was quite disconcerting.

At that point I was dialyzing in the KIMS dialysis unit where Jayaram was the Lead Technician. I had become very used to him cannulating me. Whenever he would be away on some other work, I would be totally scared about the cannulation. I would rarely let any other tech cannulate me. The confidence with which he went about his work was striking.

I immediately checked with him if he would come home and dialyze me. Thankfully, he agreed!

It was new for him as well. But he was not overwhelmed. Confidence was always his biggest asset. I depended on him heavily for the initial setup as well. And then we started home treatments. At first we did only short daily dialysis. Within a few weeks, we moved to nocturnal. There were issues at times. He handled all of them with ease. Blood leaks, machine problems, cannulation problems. Apart from his experience and skill, it was his self-belief that aided him.

Slowly, he became a great friend. We shared a lot. He soon taught me everything about dialysis - priming, cannulation, starting a session and eventually closing a session. Many times when he would get delayed in his day job at KIMS, I would start off on my own. At one point I started dialyzing on Sundays as well, doing everything from start to finish on my own. This was thanks wholly to Jayaram's teaching.

I in turn passed on to him my love for all things Apple. Today, he owns an iPhone 4 (which he bought before me) and a MacBook.

Jayaram is leaving because his duties at KIMS are now taking up a lot of his time and he is unable to come in time and he feels I am being put to inconvenience. He feels I should get someone else to help. Fair enough. I now have a couple of technicians from NephroPlus who will be assisting me with my dialysis. I doubt if I will ever have as close a relationship with any technician as I did with Jayaram.

Thanks for everything Jayaram!