The train don't run into Witchita, less'n you're a hog, the people train runs out of Stubbville...

What a nice day we had! The day started out with Rob kissing me at 4:45am and me asking him, "How was dialysis?", which is what I usually do every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings when Rob comes home from his nocturnal hemo treatment. He went into treatment a little bit earlier because the nursing staff wanted to get off work earlier and get home to their family celebrations. Well, then I rolled over closer to Gunnie and Taylor and fell back asleep until 10am! Sleeping in on days when I don't work is so nice.

Rob got some extra sleep from 4:45 until 10:30am when he finally had enough energy to get moving. Dialysis makes him a little tired, especially after nights when he doesn't sleep very well. (He forgot to take his Ambien!)

I had one major chore to complete this morning before our guest came over - I had to give Gunnie and Taylor their bath, and then clean the entire bathroom top-to-bottom. Ugh! I don't mind giving the dogs a bath, but it's the entire cleaning up afterward that's hard. The dogs get so much hair everywhere!

A couple hours of cleaning later, I was still in my PJ's, and our guest, Leslie, came over. Oops, time to get showered and dressed, I guess! :)

We snacked on triscuits, hummus, spinach dip and ranch dip for "lunch". We started cooking around 2pm, and by 4:00 we were eating our dinner. I made my "world-famous, okay, Durham-famous" turkey burgers, and Rob made his super yummy homemade garlic mashed potatoes. This time Rob made them with a little extra kick of flavor by adding red chili peppers to them. Yum! In addition, we had cornbread stuffing and broccoli. For dessert, we had Leslie's famous Pumpkin Cobbler, which is absolutely delectable.



After dinner, we watched our favorite Thanksgiving-themed movie. You know the one, the movie where John Candy and Steve Martin annoy each other on airplanes, trains, rental cars, Greyhound buses, taxicabs, and hotels. Steve's character just wants to get home to his wife and 3 kids for Thanksgiving dinner, and John Candy's character doesn't have a family to go home to at all. Despite the language in the one airport car rental scene, this is one movie that's a keeper in our DVD collection for many, many years to come. There are so many hilarious parts in this movie, like this one:

"YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY - YOU'RE GOING TO KILL SOMEBODY!! They said we're going the wrong way. How would they know where we're going? Yeah, how would they know? THANK YOU!!"

and this one: "I'm afraid to look at my butt, I might have those grill marks like a Whopper!"



Then we all watched "Away We Go", one of my newest favorites. It's all about a couple of 30-somethings on a road trip in search of the perfect place to live after their baby is born. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it!

It was a very nice Thanksgiving. I just wish I could have celebrated this day with my family in California! Oh well, maybe next year, either we will be there or they will come out here.

Time to get to bed, as tomorrow is Black Friday and both Rob and I have to work. I'm working the 10 to 7 shift, and Rob is 8 to 5. I wonder how busy the mall will be? I've never gone shopping on Black Friday. I hope I don't get trampled on by Gap shoppers who are vying for the last red V-neck sweater on the shelf! :)

Nine days

9 days have passed since our last post. No, don't get worried. We're all doing fine. We're just busy with work, Rob's dialysis treatments and my new part-time job. Yes, I got the job!! I'll be working at the Gap at Southpoint Mall for the holiday season, and if they like me, they'll let me stay after the season is complete.

I got the extra job at the Gap because I'd like to be able to use the extra money to apply it towards paying off our 2 store credit lines (Target and Macy's, in case you were wondering), and they're not all that much, so I should be able to pay them off with my Gap earnings in about 2 or 3 months. Also, working at the Gap gives us a great discount on clothes, which we don't buy too much of anyway because we just don't have a lot of extra money after the bills are paid. So now we're also going to be able to play catch-up on buying some much needed new clothes. I haven't gone too crazy yet - so far I've bought 4 under-shirts, 3 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of women's jeans, 2 turtleneck sweaters and 1 pair of men's jeans. Why does that sound a little like the 12 days of Christmas song?

Tonight's blog won't be very long because Rob will be home from work soon and we're planning on watching a movie I rented last night - "My Sisters Keeper". There's a little bit in the movie that is about renal failure, dialysis and a potential kidney donation. I read the book that the movie is based on about 2 years ago. It was a great book, so I hope the movie will be just as good. I'll start making some hot cocoa now, and I'll get the electric throw blanket warmed up for immediate cozy snuggle action as soon as Rob gets home.

I hope you all are having a great weekend!

Rob's recap

Yesterday was a slow moving rainy day off of work. It was hard to get motivated, the house was cold, the pups were snuggly, and I needed to find something to do that wasn't riding my bike. I really need to be motivated to ride when it is wet and cold out, like I need to be at the trailhead starting my ride when it starts or I will never make it past my doorway.

I gave myself a couple of projects, one was to build the top of my router table and the other was to dig a shallow trench to divert water from flowing down my driveway into the basement of our back house (or what I call my woodshop.)

I had purchased all of my supplies months ago, but have been so busy as of late that it has been hard to get to working on the router table. Sure I could purchase a router table that wouldn't take up much room and I could store it after each use, but I felt it wouldn't support the projects I am going to use it for. The original plans were for a 20" x 30", but I decided to modify my plans to make it 24"x 48" so it could handle the work I was going to put it through.

Basically, I took 2 1/4 sheet pieces of MDF, measured out the space for the mounting plate and cut it out of both sheets with the jigsaw. I thought about it afterward that I probably should have glued the sheets together first so the cut would be more even, but it wasn't anything a sander couldn't fix.

Then I had to take the router with a mortising bit to carve out the shelf for the mounting plate. Normally this would be done with a rabbeting bit with a bearing on the end to keep from taking off too much material, but that would be another $30 if I could have even found the right size. The mortising bit and freehand was going to have to suffice. I started cutting and I noticed that it looked like I was cutting too deep. I stopped, readjusted and went back to work. The completed job was serviceable, so I stopped there and glued the pieces together, once dried, I sanded the edge where they were a little uneven and it came out nice and smooth.



While the glue was drying, I grabbed my yard hoe and went to digging a trench to stop the water from flowing into my wood shop. What gave me the idea was, one day, I was down in my shop and it started raining, raining really hard, raining so much that water poured down my drive way, it looked like a small scale version of the flood at Universal Studios on the Tram Tour. It filled up the step down into the shop, the only thing keeping it from going in was the door. Water just kept coming and coming, I am lucky there is a sump down there, but I still want to keep it dry, so I dug the trench. After directing it to a small creek that runs under my back yard, it was great to watch the water flow down it, kind of a sense of accomplishment.

After that, I went inside to make some dinner and wait for Danielle to get home. While I was cooking, my friend Robert called and asked about any holistic kidney remedies that I might know of considering my situation, I should know something. Unfortunately, all I could think of was 100% cranberry juice. His wife had complications from a previous surgery that was causing her kidney to swell and was about to go in for surgery to repair the kidney issue. Robert, if you are reading this, we are praying that everything goes smoothly.!

Danielle called and asked me to come meet her, I had totally spaced on the fact that she had an interview at the Gap. When I went to meet her, we went shopping at the Gap because I needed a new pair of jeans and they were having a 25% off sale for veteran's day. We hung out and talked about our day, then we had to part ways, she was going to our friend, Heather's house, for discipleship, and I was headed to dialysis.

It is just as of late that dialysis is starting to wear on me, poor sleep, early mornings, loud morning crew and patients, it is a rough way to wake up, especially when you are in and out of sleep all night. I have started taking ambien to help with the sleep, but I had forgotten it at home, so I had to suffer through. At least I was able to get out earlier than normal because I had gotten there so early the night before. Sometimes I don't get out until 7 am, when they are a full hour and a half into treatment of the morning patients.

Today was tough on me and I am not sure why. I didn't take off much last night, I had pretty decent sleep, I didn't have lingering effects of the Ambien from the night before. I was sluggish when I packing up, then I came home and crashed on the couch until 11 am. I did a few things around the house and went to work. Work wasn't so bad, although, I thought it would be considering how crummy I felt. We ended up making the day by a significant margin, however business tapered off pretty sharply after 4:30 pm. It was cold and wet out, so I assume most stayed in rather than brave the weather. The slow traffic allowed me to get a lot of work done.

When I got home, I found that a key piece to my next wood shop project arrived, my Jorgensen woodworking vise. I needed it to complete my bench. The neat part about it is, it has a piece that allows me to clamp large pieces to the bench for sanding and planing, or even gluing for that matter. That is for another day.

Snazzy new cycling shoes and frozen yogurt bliss

What is it with me and frozen yogurt? In the past 2 weeks, I've eaten at Durham's newest frozen yogurt place - "Local Yogurt" 2 times, and both visits were at 6pm, before I've eaten dinner. I should know better. Eating dessert before dinner spoils my dinner. It's 9:16pm as I write this, and I still haven't eaten my "real" dinner because I'm not hungry. Bad Danielle, bad! Okay, I promise to eat something healthy at the conclusion of this blog entry.



The last time Rob and I rode our mountain bikes, my feet hurt like crazy because I've outgrown my cycling shoes. I used to wear a 42.5 and now I'm in 44's. It was time for a new pair. So Rob ordered me a nice pair of custom-fit Shimano M-230's. They are technically my birthday present, just a little late in delivery, but oh well.

Yes, I know I have big feet! I come from a family of women with large clod-hoppers. I heard that my Grandma was barely 5 foot tall and wore size 10 shoes! Wow.



I went to a bike shop in Brier Creek to have the shoes custom fit to my feet. The process of the custom fitting was really cool. Sorry I didn't take any pics of the process or the machine. First, they heat up the insoles for a couple of minutes. Then you put them back in the shoes, tighten them up, and stand in them for 5 minutes. Then you take the insoles back out again, and then heat up the entire shoe for a few minutes. They were nice and toasty after that! Get back in the shoe, tighten them up, and then put your whole shoe inside this shoe-shaped plastic bag, that was attached to a compressor that when turned on, sucked all the air and your shoes down tight on your foot. The owner of the bike shop (who happened to be a pretty nice guy, by the way!) then massaged my shoes for 90 seconds, which felt really nice! After that, the process was done. My shoes are ready and waiting for me to take them on their maiden voyage this weekend, that is, if it ever stops raining. Guess I'll be riding Duke Forest or Umstead...



These shoes are so snazzy that they deserve to be ridden somewhere really cool for their first ride. I know, you may be asking yourself, "Danielle, you don't race anymore, why do you need such nice, almost top-of-the-line cycling shoes?" Well, I tried on the cheaper version (retail: $119) of this shoe, available in stock where Rob works, and while they fit great and looked good, they had just a tad too much flexibility in the sole for my liking. My old shoes were Sidi Dominator's, a shoe known to bike racers all over the world, and they had a very stiff sole. I know I don't NEED a stiff-soled shoe for racing purposes anymore, but I found it hard to go with the more flexible, I guess, because I've been involved in the sport for so long, and I know that the 3 most important parts of your bike set-up is: Shoes, shorts, and saddle. I'm going to add in Gloves to that list to, and make it the 4 most important parts. Why? Well, think about it, shoes, saddle and gloves - these are the points of body contact to your bike. If you scrimp on those parts and buy the cheaper ones, you'll regret it in the long run.



I tried to snap a picture of Gunnie in the shoes, but she would not let me! But Taylor approves of my new custom fit cycling shoes!

Great Full Day!

So, today started off slow, getting out of bed to Danielle telling me I need to get ready for church. When I actually got out of bed, she grabbed me and danced me into the kitchen so I would not be motivated to dive back into bed. I love a warm, cozy bed on a cool morning. As I was pulled away from it, I heard it calling my name, then it drifted off in the distance as I woke more.

We had talked about driving to Greensboro to ride at Owl's Roost after church, so I was excited, looking forward to a ride at a trail we don't ride often. Now that I don't have kidneys, I need to find alternative ways to take off fluid outside of dialysis and have found sweating is one of the only other ways outside of not drinking anything.

I had a new experience at church this morning, I was called to lead the Sunday school for the preschoolers this morning. When it got back to Danielle that the kids behaved perfectly for me during story time, she looked excited. Apparently, they tend to squirm around on the other teachers. I did have a lot of help from our friends Kirstie and James. Kirstie was the helper and James and his wife Rachel have two children in the class.

After church, we went to Arby's for lunch where I was only allowed to have half of my mint chocolate milkshake, once I drank half, okay, 2/3 of it, Danielle "stole" it and placed it at the other end of the table. While watching my fluid is one of the toughest parts of kidney failure, it is great to have a partner who helps you watch how much fluid you are taking on.

On occasion, I get a thirst like no other and I am a gulper. Taking sips just doesn't do the trick, especially when it is ice cold soda, water, or juice. I need to tell the server at restaurants not to bring a refill because I will drink it and while it will be great for the moment, it will hit me hardest during treatment.

The problem with taking too much off, is your body can only take so much without giving you a fluid imbalance. The other night, I had to take of 6.3 liters (13.86 lbs.) of fluid. Think about how your body would feel if you had to take off almost 15 lbs in 8 hours. To think that is a pretty regular number for me. If I don't do things like bike riding or running to get my blood flowing, I am lethargic all day.

Anyway, back to the day. We decided to go over to another friend, Karen, who had surgery and has trouble getting around. We hung out for a half hour and saw that she is in good spirits.

When we got home, we decided Greensboro was too far to drive for the time of day if we were to get a decent ride in. We decided on riding at the Hog Run trails at Harris Lake.

The ride went well for me, but not so well for Danielle. Her feet were killing her, her Sidi's that used to fit well, now are too tight. Apparently he feet have grown a size and the new shoes I ordered for her have not come in yet.

We rode for 40 minutes at a leisurely pace. We just rode the Beginner loop and the Intermediate loop twice. I didn't want to tire out on the advanced loop and have to push through the pain and exhaustion to make it back to the truck. I had a lot of fun, but then, I usually do when I ride with Danielle.

Here we are at the end of the ride:



I know, we are such a cute couple. I love this picture of us.

On the way home, I asked Danielle if she wanted to hit up a new restaurant in Southpoint called Los Portales. She said sure, so we headed off. I had something that was way off the diet plan, it was fajita chicken with chorizo, covered in cheese sauce that you placed on warm tortillas and added lettuce, guac, and salsa. It was amazing, loaded with flavor I haven't had in a while. A dialysis diet tends to be very bland. Danielle had an enchilada plate that looked equally yummy.

Sorry if this was a little disjointed, this was my first attempt at blogging.

Jam packed day of fun!

Today was beautiful! Here's a recap:

It started out with me teaching the elementary Sunday School class at church. It was cute, seeing the kids' drawings of Paul, Julius and the others on their ship sailing to Italy. I should scan them in and post them for you to see! The kids seemed to like the lesson, especially since I didn't try to rush through the lesson, which I think I've been doing a lot of lately. The curriculum we use to teach out of is obviously for Sunday School classrooms that have more than 45 minutes set aside for teaching. So today I decided to break down the lesson down, so instead of learning about the whole chapter of Acts 27, we worked on verses 1-14 only. Next week we'll try to get through 15-32 and the week after that, we'll finish the chapter.

After Sunday School, we experienced a beautiful sermon on Mark 15:1-15. Pastor Martie helped explain what was going on, which is always so nice, a breath of fresh air. I love the expository style of preaching that he does! I'm not afraid to admit that reading the Bible on my own can be a bit confusing sometimes, so it's nice to have someone explain the details of what's going on and what it meant at that time. So anyway, Mark 15 explains what happens when Jesus was handed over to Pontius Pilate. I'd never really known who Pilate was until this morning (the Roman governor of Judea). And I'd never known who Barabbas was (a guy who murdered people, a terrorist, so to speak). So it was good to learn that stuff.

My heart was affected at the end of the sermon when Pastor Martie compared us (me, you, all people) to Barabbas. That we are all sinners, that we all deserve to be eternally punished for going our own ways, but we were "set free" just like Barabbas was. So instead of us being punished, it was Jesus who was punished for our sins. Pilate asked, "Do you want me to release the King of the Jews or Barabbas?" and all the people shouted, Barabbas, Barabbas! So the convicted murderer was set free by Pilate, who did that to please the people. And then Pilate ordered Jesus to be flogged and crucified. Jesus became the sin and paid the price for our sin. Good stuff!

After church, we had lunch with good friend Kirstie at Arby's, and then we all went to visit a mutual friend who's been laid up in her house since July suffering from the effects of ankle surgery. It was great to see her. She keeps getting better and better every time I visit her. The aquatic physical therapy seems to be working wonders!

It was such a beautiful day, we knew we just HAD to go for a bike ride!

We drove about 40 minutes away to southwestern Wake County to ride the mountain bike trails at Harris Lake Park. I hadn't ridden here in at least a year and a half. They've done some trail work out there that's really nice! Here's 2 pics from the trailside of the intermediate loop.





It wasn't the best ride of my life, but hey, it was a ride! You know the saying, "A bad day on a mountain bike beats the best day spent at work". Okay, well maybe you've never seen it like that. Usually I see that saying on the bumper of some older truck driving about Vance or Granville county, and instead of it referencing mountain biking, it's about fishing or hunting...

My feet hurt pretty much the whole ride. About 10 minutes into our ride, I had to stop and adjust my shoe straps so that my foot was practically falling out at the top of every pedal stroke. I can't wait to get my new cycling shoes this week. My feet have grown about a size and a half in the past 2 years. I used to be a solid size 10 or 10.5, but now I'm an 11-12, depending on the type of shoe. Rob ordered me a super nice pair, size 44 now! Almost time to say goodbye to my 42.5 Sidi's. It's been a nice 4 years!

After the ride, we went out for dinner at Los Portales in Durham. Dining out with a husband who has no kidneys and is on dialysis is challenging. But sometimes you just gotta let loose and eat the kind of food you're not really supposed to. Like Mexican food. Like chorizo. Like refried BEANS. And CORN chips and TOMATO salsa, all washed down with a little Sprite. Oh man, most of you reading this will not be on dialysis or even know much about how much our kidneys really do for our bodies. Basically, they filter out all this stuff:



A plate full of sodium (a lot in that chorizo), phosphorous (there's a ton of it in the beans) and potassium. It's a kidney's job to filter that stuff out. Of course our bodies need some of this stuff in order to work, but it certainly doesn't need all of it, and that's where our kidneys come into play. So we've been watching the sodium, phosphorous, calcium and potassium since Rob started dialysis in January 2008. But only since this past June have we had to really watch and closely monitor Rob's fluid intake. So things like this are deemed a special treat:



Since Rob doesn't produce urine, all that he takes into his body must be taken off by a dialysis machine, or sweated off during exercise. A big role that I play with Rob is "mean nurse", or at least it feels like that sometimes! I see his lab results sometimes and if something is too high, I'll get on Rob and say, "Have you been taking your renal vitamin and your FosRenal binders?" in that tone that's sort of like a cross between a concerned doctor and your Mom asking you why you haven't taken out the trash yet. And then sometimes, Rob will tell me that his dialysis treatment was awful, so I naturally ask him, "how much did you take off tonight?" And he'll answer 6 or 7...and I give him "the eye". Mmmm, we gotta get that to stay around 5, okay hun?

I help out in that a lot by reminding him to not drink so much when we're at home and out and about. If I see him at the fridge, reaching for the cranberry juice, I'll stand there and watch him, and if he's drinking for too long (yes, we drink out of the container...one day that'll stop, I promise!) I'll say as nice as possible, "sweetie, how are your fluids today?" Which means, you've been at work all day, and I have no idea how many times you stopped by the drinking fountain, and I'm worried that you've had too much to drink already, so for you to be drinking that, I umm, just want you to be careful, because it could lead to a yucky treatment for you later tonight.

I love our life, even with all the dietary restrictions and lifestyle impediments that dialysis brings on. And I love my husband so much, I hate seeing him stressed out when he has a bad treatment due to taking off too much fluid. I wish I could press the fast-forward button like in that movie "Click" and just skip forward to when Rob gets a kidney transplant!

That's all from me for tonight. I'll see if I can get Rob to blog now!

To blog, or not to blog, that is the question?

All the cool kids are doing it. C'mon, just do it. Everyone will think you're cool. They'll laugh at your humor. It'll be fun, I promise.

Aw, I'm having second thoughts about this. This isn't going to be as fun as I originally thought. I mean, who really cares enough to want to read what I'll write? This is a dumb idea.

These are thoughts that have been going on in my all-too-stuffed brain lately. Sometimes I feel like I barely have the mental energy to complete the duties that make up life's general activities, such as working, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, being a wife...so why am I considering the addition of blogging to that list? I guess my answer is:

Because I feel that I have something to share,
Because I hope that my experience will help others,
Because I love my husband,
Because I want to share info about Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD),
Because I want others to know that dialysis can sometimes be a drag,
Because I want to show that dialysis can be a positive experience.

Okay, I'll go for it. There's nothing to lose, except time that is, which I'm already wasting on mostly unproductive websites like Facebook and Fark. So why not take this time and use it productively? Maybe someone, somewhere out there will read this and be comforted, encouraged, strengthened or informed by what I write.

And maybe, just maybe...I can get my husband to add in his 2 cents every once in a while. He's the one with all the true knowledge of PKD and life on hemodialysis.