I'm just so damed lucky!

Yes, I've had a lot go wrong with my health the last 10 years, but for all practical purposes, what I have had has been treatable. Treatment wasn't always fun and there were some risks, but basically I just had to keep on chugging and knew I could look forward to better times. Having to retire because of kidney failure was hard, but I could keep on going at least somewhat. Dialysis was bad, but the light at the end of the tunnel was a potential transplant. Then my cousin came through and I got a kidney from her (love you Sue!). I had some rough times with tubes and picc lines and drug reactions, but basically things kept getting better. And then under all that were the constant struggles with diabetes - tons and tons of work with sometimes bad results no matter how hard you try. But it was still do-able and I could keep on going. The pancreas transplant was great although the 7 months in hospital afterwards were tough. But my Sweetie was always there for me and we got married as scheduled. It may not sound like it, but I've been incredibly lucky. There has always been a light at the end of the tunnel for me - an excellent chance that things could, and would get better.

A friend I've known for years passed away this evening. We even went to the same high school and were in a musical production together although we didn't know each other then. It was fun discovering our common background when we lived near each other. Not quite two years ago she was diagnosed with cancer. For herself and her lovely family she fought and worked to get healthy again. But the odds didn't look that good, even from the start.  But she never stopped making an effort and tried everything possible to keep  herself going. She went through every treatment imaginable with dignity and strength and support from the many who love her. I'm relieved that her passing was peaceful, but I'm angry too that the modern technology that has kept me going relatively well was just not enough to save her. I think sometimes we forget that there are still limitations to medical science. Damn.

Don't forget to make a donation to your local hospital. Those dollars go to patient care and research - and that changes lives.

A terrific show

I absolutely can't wait for the beginning of November. Cesar Milan (the Dog Whisperer) is coming to town and a friend of mine has purchased some tickets and has invited me along. I just can't wait. Did I mention that I'm chomping at the bit and can't wait to go?  I don't always agree with the guy, but he does make a tremendous amount of sense, and also has an incredible gift. We have "Leader of the Pack" tickets that will allow us be part of a Q & A session after the show. I have my own questions to ask him, but I am also taking a poll among all my dog loving friends to see who can come up with interesting questions that I would also love to know the answer to. I just can't wait. Have I mentioned that already?

The next few months are going to be soooo busy. Appointments galore, a trip to Minneapolis for my annual transplant check up, a trip to Surrey, BC for a writer's conference, and in addition to Cesar Milan I'll also be going to see "Fiddler on the Roof". Would you believe I've never seen it?

Lots of things to look forward to. Yeah!

Lanai vs Bidet

Now how on earth would I come up with a combination like this? Well, let me tell you. I was watching Canada AM this morning for my morning dose of news, human interest, weather, etc. It's a great show but every once in a while really weird things happen. In this case, the video is labeled "Jeff's Video:  Gator swims in backyard pool". Sounds interesting, might be some good footage, right? Oh boy. The  poor gator took a back seat in the entire story. Jeff was talking about lanais in Florida and the woman who is replacing Bev actually asked "Is a lanai like a bidet?"  Things just got extreme from there.

Watch the video!

I am just so impressed with Seamus and Jeff. I would have completely lost it but these guys are real pros! But hit the pause button at the right moment and watch Seamus' face. His expression is priceless!!

As for other things right now, the mutts are in "puppy prison."  They are getting sprung in a couple of days. They do love it there. "Uncle Rob" takes good care of them.  The little devils race down the hallway to their usual runs, bolt in, anxiously wait for Rob to open the gate to outside, and then disappear without a backwards glance. I don't feel missed at all. Sniff.

Otherwise things are stable and going well for the entire family. Yeah!

What's going on?

Four whole blog posts last month and I'm starting the new month all ready. What has gotten into me? And while I'm pondering things, where did the rest of the summer go and why is it now August already?

I've been wanting to post this for a while and I have permission to as I finally asked. Mike and I have seen something in the check out line of the grocery store for a while and it always makes me laugh. The headlines of the tabloids are often hilarious and one has struck our fancy. Mike thinks it would make a fantastic name for a band. Are you ready? Here it comes. "Al Gore Sex Attack" That beats Blind Melon and Puddle of Mudd any day of the week. Do you think Al would mind? Maybe as long as the band utilized green technology?

It's going to be an action packed month. Tons of appointments, visitors, and exams. I've also done quite a bit of writing too on top of everything. Maybe I just wasn't busy enough before to feel the pressure. Who knows. At least I'm feeling and being productive.

Some links and other stuff

Don't you love technology sometimes? I've been having some problems posting some convenient links. So I tried again today, did the exact same thing as yesterday, and now it's working. Go figure.

So, for folks who are interested in the books I've mentioned, the Henrietta Lacks book for Canadians is here and for my American friends it's here . "Mortuary Confidential" for Canadians and for my US friends

Yeah! Another new skill. No idea why it works now, but I think I'll avoid worrying about that for now.

On a cheery note, my creatinine level is back down to my baseline. I just got some results back. Because my veins are so bad (what else is new) I've gotten permission to go for labs every 6 weeks instead of every month. It'll be a nice reprieve for a while. Other than that, everything is good.

One more link. Mike introduced me to a fantastic website. It's pretty sick sometimes though. It is billed as a "webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." It is called xkcd and is doubly funny because when you put your cursor over the comic, you get an additional punchline. Here is one of my favorites even though it takes a bit of time to figure out the extra gag. Another really good one about parking is here

An older grand-puppy

My grandpuppies are getting older and I've just received some new photos. I think this one is the most beautiful and if I had the room, and the time and patience for a pup, and the additional time to groom him and show him, I'd snatch him up in a heartbeat. He's got Sonny's eyes and the most gorgeous eyebrows. Oh well. I can dream a little. Maybe one of these years I'll get organized enough to do everything I want. In the meantime, I'll just have to work on concentrating on my priorities. Isn't he a beaut?

If you'd like to see some older photos of the babies, then you can visit the breeders site and look under the photos section for Nora's bebes 2010. There's a photo of Sonny in the miscellaneous photo section. Sorry, but the site seems to be in french only. http://www.taiga-afghan.com/fr/index.cfm

Some good books

I've just finished "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." It's extremely interesting. I haven't been reading a lot of nonfiction lately, but this was fantastic. A huge amount of research is being done on HeLa, one of the worlds most commonly used cell lines for studies in everything from cosmetics to cancer. There are something like 300 studies per month published using HeLa cells. They originally came from this 31 year old black woman who was dying of cervical cancer (HEnrietta LAcks). Hers became one of the very first cell lines to cultured for a long period of time. This book is about her, her family, and the development of cell lines and medical research. It's fascinating, but also readable for folks who don't have a science degree. It's also wonderful that she is finally getting the recognition that she deserves. The author is Rebecca Skloot and the book is definitely worth the read. If you go to her website, she has started a foundation to raise money for the descendants of Henrietta where you can donate. The sad truth is that while HeLa is a multimillion dollar industry, there is no recompense for the descendants, who can't even afford health care. Before I read the book, I was outraged, but after reading decided that I don't think things could have gone any differently for the family.

Another book I'm reading is "Mortuary Confidential." It's stories from morticians about their industry. Some are funny, some touching, and some just sad. All in all it's not a bad read, but it was a bit flat. Many of the stories were mostly mildly entertaining, but nothing much more than that.

On the subject of books, mine is coming along slowly. I haven't done much lately, but I have worked out a number of ideas and in the next little while I'll be making some time to make some headway. I'm working hard at spending less time (wasted time really) online.

Feeling Hot Hot Hot

Ok, I'll admit it. I don't like summer. Since we get both extremes of temperature here I figure that as long as I only complain about one season, I'm all right. So I choose to bitch, whine, and complain about the heat. I just don't fare that well. But on top of that I have to drag a sweater along every time I go to the mall, the hospital, the grocery store...... because the air conditioning is turned up so high.

On a cheerier note, I'll be meeting with a new writing group tonight and I'm really looking forward to it. We met during a 6 week workshop at a local college. The instructor was excellent and I think I'll take another of her courses in the fall. I bought one of her books too and really enjoyed it. Her sister, who also writes, was a guest speaker and I really liked her book as well.  http://www.nancydarryl.com/index.html

Both mutts are fine too, but also not enjoying the heat. But I am enjoying the break. Usually when I'm home I will let them in and out and in and out and...... You get the idea. Right now they are only going out about 3 or 4 times per day. Once early in the am to drain the tank, once mid-day, and then before bed. It's just too hot to be wearing a fur coat outside. Whoops, back to the  heat issue.

A year and a day.

Ok, so I'm a day late with this, but anyway. Mike and I are kind of a reverse Dr Phil-ism. The good doctor says that the only thing worse than being in a really bad relationship is being in one for a year and one day. In our case, the only thing better than being married for a year (as of Sunday the 27th) is being married for a year and one day. That was yesterday's celebration.

We had a fabulous weekend. We did a mini re-creation of our wedding weekend. A fabulous dinner at Arome restaurant, a night at the Chateau Laurier, and then brunch the next day, also at the Chateau. Granted, there was only the 6 of us (us, Mom and Dad, and SIL and husband) but it was still fantastic. We are also planning some time with the kids and we are all going to go see Toy Story 3. I can't wait!

Today's request

Today's blog is answering a request from my husband. Anyone remember that sorry excuse for a candy bar called a Big Turk? Here the link to the wiki page. It's a disgusting combination of pink-ish turkish delight covered in milk chocolate. I still see them at the grocer store but can't believe anyone eats them. Apparently part of the advertising is that it has 60% less fat than the average chocolate bar. Even so, why bother?

Had a super fun night last night too. Went to an old friend's house (pardon me, long time friend - she's not old) who I haven't seen in a long time. Her son is now almost 11 and when he was almost 2 I gave him this monstrously large (barely fit in the shopping cart) toy polar bear. He and my friend came over that year at Christmas and I gave him the bear. She tried to get him to say my name, but he was bashful and didn't spit it out. When they got home she asked him what he was going to call the bear, and it was officially named "Cora-bear." I felt so honoured. So when she told him I was going to be coming over, his first question was "like Cora-bear?" I was careful to not tell  him how big he had gotten. I used to hate that as a kid, so I didn't pass it on.

When preparation meets the moment of opportunity

It'll take me a bit to get to the point to explain the title for this blog post. I can't believe the last month has flown by so quickly. I've been busy and motivated. I took a 6 week writing workshop that really helped get my ass in gear. It's worked out very nicely that 3 other ladies from the class and I will hopefully be getting together to work on our writing. I still have one partner who helps me with my writing from a week long workshop I took quite a few years ago, but it's nice to have a group again.

I've had some fun on Facebook too. I don't normal "do" social networking, but by sheer coincidence, I've come across a couple of folks from high school (and before) and have gotten back in contact again. Talk about a walk down memory lane.

The other night I had a wonderful dinner with two friends and the conversation somehow came around to talking about Terry Fator. If you haven't seen him, or heard of him, check his first audition for America's Got Talent:   http://www.webscene.eu/video.aspx?sr=1&vid=qgGU17SGnU-9JTsV93VUWg  He is fantastic and after watching this again, I went to Youtube to watch some more clips. I'm a huge fan. I saw a clip of him on Oprah and she talked to him how he felt about being called "lucky" to have won. He basically stated that he had been working at this for 33 years. Her response was that she felt that luck was usually when preparation meets the moment of opportunity. 
 
So that's what I'm trying to do. Be prepared for my moment of opportunity. I've signed up for the Surrey International Writer's Conference. It's an annual deal for me when I am well. This year I am determined to finish my novel before the conference. What am I doing to motivate myself? Well, I've basically boxed myself in. I have booked an appointment with an editor from Tor books. They are one of the top science fiction publishers and if I am properly prepared with a good manuscript and a good pitch, maybe I'll get my opportunity. We'll see.

My calendar is nearly clear!

Look out everyone. I'm going to be calling and setting up get togethers. I looked back on my date book for the last few months and boy, is it filled with ink. The next month though, is pretty clear. Only a couple of appointments, my Thursday night writing class, and that's it. I didn't realize how busy I was and how tired I was getting. I keep looking at all that beautiful white space!

On another cheerful note, I received some beautiful pictures of Sonny's babies. Aren't they sweet?

The little white one looks like such a ham! There are several shots that were sent to me of him, each one looking more posed than the next.

I'm so proud of myself too. I cleaned out books out of the basement. Another 7 garbage bags worth gone. Not that you can really tell. The good thing is that they went to a friend's son's school book drive. Hopefully I helped his class win the pizza party for the most books donated. I don't dare go to the sale. I may just end up buying some of my own stuff back (seller's remorse!).

What a month!

I really need to start updating this more. The last month has been soooo busy with many high points and some low ones as well.

On a really high note, I had my 2nd anniversary of being insulin free on the 27th of April. I plan on having 3 pancreas anniversaries this year. My first second-anniversary was on Feb. 28. That was the 2nd anniversary of my transplant. April 27th  was my second anniversary of my last shot of insulin (7 units of lantus). My plan for my 3rd anniversary is to celebrate my amount of time insulin free. I was about 2 years and 4 months old when I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. So at the end of August I will have spent roughly the same amount of time insulin free as an adult as I did as a child. Believe me, I appreciate it much more now than I did then. 

I will be having some extra doctor appointments over the next little while. I am feeling pretty good, but last year in June and again this year in March I had some blood in my urine. It is most likely something to do with the new pancreas. I have seen a urologist (young guy with lots of transplant experience - yeah) and he feels that it could be something as simple as a small amount of erosion due to pancreatic enzymes, a migrated staple from the surgery, or something a bit more serious like some sort of viral infection (best case = not necessary to treat benign and worst case = requiring extensive treatment due to potential damage). So I had an extensive ultrasound today and next month will go in for more tests.

On a bad note, I had a system crash on my laptop. I'm pretty mad at myself because I haven't been backing up properly. Mike will help me fix that (he's so great and didn't say "I told you so"). I've also had my Mac Dude send my old hard drive in for repair. It's going to be expensive, but the good news is that it looks like almost everything will be recoverable. The thing is that pretty much everything on the laptop I can live without. But it's the memories that are on there. Some of my first short stories, a running record of my transplant meds since 2002, and lots and lots of photographs. I should get things back in a few weeks. In the meantime it's been fun rebuilding all my internet bookmarks.

I've signed up for a one month writing workshop too. I had my first class last week and it was great. It is really lighting a fire under me and I'm more and more motivated to get writing done.

I also had some great news. I have some online friends where the husband has just received a kidney/pancreas transplant. It will be such a blessing for them and I'm so excited. They went through the same thing I did with a number of false starts and calls that didn't pan out. I don't know what is more nerve wracking, the stress from being told it might not happen, or the stress from realizing that "this is it".

I find myself drifting a bit lately so my plan is to plan a bit more and to have some goals on a weekly or biweekly basis. I think I need to treat the things I do a bit more like a job with responsibilities. I forget sometimes that I do have responsibility to myself to work to acheive my goals and to not let things slide. I'll keep you posted on how setting goals works.

Jury Duty Part II April 6th

Well it was a really interesting morning. I left early because I was afraid of post-long weekend traffic. I didn't need to be. I figured it would take me about an hour to an hour and a half to get to the parking at city hall (next to the courthouse). Surprisingly enough it only took me 35 minutes. So I arrived at 7:35 for a 9:00 start time for jury selection.

Unfortunately I was feeling pretty under the weather. I'm back to my old tricks (pre-dialysis days) where I carry plastic garbage bags around if I need to toss my cookies unexpectedly. So I bought an apple juice (always settles my tummy) and popped more immodium (love that drug). And I waited. And waited. And waited. I was able to check in early and was told to come back at 9:45. By 10 am the court officers were explaining the procedures of how we will be chosen and what the cases were roughly. 2 were civil and would take about 10 days (starting as soon as jury selection was completed) and 2 were criminal (one involving sexual assault and confinement) which would take about 3 - 5 weeks. Since there were about 150 people in the room, there were a lot of questions so that took quite a while.

We were then taken into the courtroom and the lottery began. The judge was nice and thorough and named the plaintiffs, defendants, witnesses, and counsels to ensure that there would be no bias or knowledge of the cases. It was really cool too because our system is still British based. No wigs, but formal black robes and white ties. The civil trials require 6 jurors and the names were called and they were then asked if there were reasons they could not serve. After challenges a jury for the car accident was selected. It took about 40 minutes. Those folks went off to their jury room and would begin hearing the case later. We then had to wait for the next judge. This guy was a bit different and for that I am extremely grateful. He went through the speech about citizenship requirements etc, but then asked the entire crowd who had reasons that they couldn't serve. He basically let everyone who wanted out to state their case and in most cases allowed them to leave. There were a couple of university students (finals start on Monday) a man with prostate cancer, and then I made my case for my transplants and current illness. He allowed me to go right away. Yeah! The selection for the criminal juries (12 folks) would have taken all day and people not chosen were to come back on Monday for further possible selection as well. I was excused from that too.

I really wanted to serve, but I'm just not reliable enough right now. I will be put back into the potential pool and could get called again over the next 3 years. Maybe I'll get called again when I'm better. In the meantime, I got a good look at the process and was pretty impressed. It was taken seriously, but was also very humane.

Jury Duty

I've always been curious about how the process works. My Dad has received the initial paperwork twice. Both times I was waiting for a transplant and he had to decline being in the jury pool. Mom also received a summons and couldn't make it either because it was scheduled for shortly after her hip surgery. So I got a notice in the mail a few months ago and I had to fill out all sorts of medical/mental questions. I received the summons today and on April 6th I will go for jury selection. I'm pretty interested in seeing how the entire process works. Since I've never been to the courthouse, I'll be doing a dry run to check out parking and where the room is. I'm a bit anal that way.

I've also finished my letter to my donor family and have sent it off. I've been told by my transplant coordinator the virtually every family appreciates the letters, but sometimes they are so overcome with emotion that they are not able to respond. I'm not expecting a response, I just want them to know that I had a beautiful wedding, in part, because of them.

Transplant Anniversary

I can't believe I nearly forgot to post this. Today is my 2 year pancreas transplant anniversary. I actually have 2 anniversaries having to do with the pancress. The 28th of Feb, 2008 was the date of the actual transplant while April 27th of that year was my last injection of insulin (6 units of lantus). Isn't technology amazing?

I'll be writing to my donor family. I feel quite badly because for a variety of reasons (some lame, some not) I have not written to them yet. I am now feeling well enough (physically and emotionally) to do them justice and let them know how deeply the donation has affected me. Basically, I don't eat anything without thinking about my donor and his family. It is such a change in lifestyle to not have to obsess about every morsel of food that passes your lips. It's such a blessing.

Please everyone, sign your organ donor cars and talk to your families about making that loving donation if and when the time comes. The tremendous impact you could have is unimaginable.

Exciting weekend

This is going to be a fun and exciting weekend. This Saturday is the Viennese Winter Ball. We are going with my folks, some terrific family and friends and my sister-in-law and her husband. It should be a fun and congenial crowds. It is a pretty posh affair. Because Dad bought a corporate table for this fundraiser, we get to go to a cocktail party at the Viennese Ambassador's residence. From there it is on to dinner and dancing at the National Art Gallery. Tomorrow is a day at "The Spa" with Kelly to get our hair and makeup done for the event. A girlie day! Woo Hoo!

Sonny was supposed to get a "conjugal" visit this weekend but it fell apart. I think he really understood what I meant when I said "booty call". He was all excited this afternoon and yesterday. Poor guy, he's off to the kennel instead. He likes it there though.

I'll post pictures soon, as long as I remember my camera.

Vegas was fun

Picture this, you go to the desert. It's dry right? It rarely rains. Right? Nope! While we had a grand time, it did rain every day we were there. And I don't mean just a little spattering of raindrops. It poured. They had some severe problems with drains backing up (blockages develop since they are rarely used).

The shows were fantastic! I was so excited to see the Lion King. I had never seen it before live. Since I am so familiar with the movie I was able to just enjoy the talk and singing but pay particular attention to the stagecraft. It was incredible. I have nothing but admiration for the folks that dreamed up the sets and the costumes. Fantastic.

I have to say too, that even if you are unfamiliar with Terry Fator, you absolutely have to buy his DVD. You can buy it on Amazon. He is amazing and it was one of the best live shows I have ever seen in my life. Those of you that know me well know that I am an absolute Disney freak. And Fator was better than the Lion King.

Bette Midler was fantastic too. She is an amazing performer and I just can't believe she is about 65 years old. Talk about energy and her voice is still phenomenal. She is sooooo funny.

I played around with my new camera (a nice little Canon Powershot) and got some good shots I think. We stayed at the Bellagio and had a view of the fountains and the Paris hotel across the street. I got a daytime and a night time shot that I am pretty happy with. The conservatory at the hotel was beautiful too. It smelled so fresh and clean and was intricately done in an Asian theme. I got a good shot too of the glass ceilings in the lobby of the hotel. I enjoyed my stay, but the part I found the hardest was the smoke. There is smoking everywhere. We are pretty spoiled here. There was even one of those combination garbage can/ashtrays at the elevators. Even though we were a non-smoking floor I guess it was for the folks puffing in the lift to put out their butts once they got to the non-smokers floor. I had to wash/dry clean everything when we got back. That's ok though. We had a lot of fun.

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year!

Here's looking forward to a year with no hospital stays for anyone in the family. Last year (except for the wedding of course) kind of sucked.

The trip to Vegas is looming on the horizon and I can't wait. Thanks to the Underpants Bomber (can you imagine going down in history known as that?) I have to pare down my carry on and figure out how to take all the prescription meds and other necessities along in one bag. How on earth did they get from chemicals in the underwear to banning carry-ons with wheels?

Hope everyone has a happy and successful 2010