Editor’s Note: George Douglas, a regular columnist on this page for more than two years, died more than a week ago. We have not received an obituary, but George has always been more than capable of speaking for himself. His columns about dialysis were about life itself particularly his own life, which was filled with interest, friendship and optimism. This column appeared on Oct. 5, 2009.

It doesn’t seem possible but I’m starting my 22nd month on dialysis, with the months literally flying by, especially this summer. I haven’t missed one of my three weekly treatments ”“ Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday ”“ since my first session on a frigid January morning of 2008.

I didn’t realize during that period that I was quite ill with renal failure and congestive heart disease, and there were several of my health care personnel who questioned whether at 84 I should undergo dialysis. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time, and my nephrologist, Dr. Paul A. Parker, made sure that I started and continued treatment.

After these months on dialysis, three days a week, no matter what the weather, including vicious ice storms, how do I honestly feel about the quality of my life? First, I consider it actually a third life, not only with a reduced life style but with a routine that’s far different than that of my two previous life cycles.

The first life was that of a journalist, reporter/editor at The Boston Post, and that abruptly ended when that daily newspaper ”“ once a journalistic juggernaut ”“ folded 53 years ago this month. My second life was primarily that of a college professor, first at Boston University, then Emerson College and later Quincy College. I followed my father, a legendary professor at Suffolk Law School, not as a lawyer but as a lecturer.

My second life ended when I retired as an adjunct professor at Quincy, a community college, at 75. My wife was ill and I couldn’t leave her for any length of time. I then wrote the first edition of the “History of the Cape Arundel Golf Club,” which was published in 2002, and then a novel “T Wharf” in 2005 and a history of Boston in the 20th century, “When Boston Was Proper (and Not So Proper)” in 2006. Incidentally, both books are still in print, with the Boston book still selling at a steady pace.

My wife, Ruth, died three years ago and this is when my so-called third life started. I had been monitored by Dr. Parker on a monthly basis with my kidney function failing. Dialysis was inevitable if I was to survive. My only son died of cancer two days before Christmas in 2007 and I was fully prepared to go as well.

But what changed my mind? Several friends, including a fellow teacher and good friend, Paul White, urged me to go on dialysis and write a book about it. The day before New Year’s Day I couldn’t breathe and ended up at the Southern Maine Medical Center. I had my first dialysis treatment in the hospital and my third life had actually started without me fully realizing it.

 Of course, no matter what you think or say in refusing treatment, there is an inherent desire to carry on. I detect it at the dialysis center among the other patients. There is a bond among us by our similar conditions, no matter what are individual backgrounds and our current physical condition.

What is my third life like and is it far different than my previous lives? Yes, it is quite different in many ways, but the same in others. First, there is a discipline in having dialysis. You have to follow a fairly regulated diet, and make sure of a good protein intake and to be careful of sodium and phosphorous. And you can’t miss a treatment.

But on the other hand, I’m writing this bi-weekly column and I wrote and edited and had published the second edition of “The History of the Cape Arundel Golf Club.” It’s now at the Kennebunk Book Port in Shopper’s Village in Kennebunk and Kennebooks, on Port Road (Route 35) in the Lower Village, Kennebunk.

Thanks to my two good friends and fellow golfers, Bill Carroll and Roger Rotvig, I played at my club, Cape Arundel Golf Club, at least twice a week this year. Obviously, I don’t hit the ball as long as I did, and take advantage of my age in making sure I have a good lie despite where the ball actually lands. Plus the fact I play two or three holes and then and rest up a bit in the cart for the next two holes.. But just to get out on the course is good therapy; as they used say in my father’s day, fresh air is a great tonic.

But what about the winter? I have written more than 30 columns, “Living with Dialysis,” and readers, as well as an editor, have suggested I put them together as a book. I honestly felt the second edition of the golf club’s history was my last book. But that creative urge that I have had in both previous lives is not dead despite my age and being on dialysis. It might be asleep, but it flares up when a. new project is suggested.

My typing is slow and my arthritic fingers miss the correct keys on occasion, but that doesn’t deter me. Certain critics might disagree, but having written and published both text and trade books over the years, such criticism is expected.

The name of the winter project is “My Third Life, Living With Dialysis.” The goal is to see it in print and in the book stores by late spring and then back to golf at Cape Arundel. (I admit I’m an optimist.)