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.