Snow Fun Report

The snow started last night around 6:45pm. I was shopping at the Food Lion down the street from my house, along with 88 other people. I endured the long, long lines to check out, and while I'm normally a pretty patient person, I really was tested last night. The Mom and son (presumably her son? He was in his late teens, I'm guessing) standing in line behind me were a tad annoying, to say the least. I was just minding my own business, standing in line, checking out Facebook on my cell phone, when I suddenly could "feel" the son making obscene gestures at me. I won't describe them here, but let's just say that I turned around to smile at them and say "Man, this is a long line, huh?" to which they replied, "Yeah, I ain't never seen so many people waiting up in line for so long!" I smiled at them again, then turned around to face my grocery cart and go back to minding my own business again. Immediately, I heard them both chuckle and then the Mom said, "stop it". Then I "felt" the obscene gesture again and heard the Mom say, "boy, if you don't stop it, I'm gonna leave you here and you can pay for our food..." I decided to ignore it completely, and thankfully they stopped.

Anyhow, I managed to get out of Food Lion eventually, $100 lighter in my pocketbook, but stocked up for at least a week of some essential food items. By the time I left, it had been snowing for all of 45 minutes, and I was surprised at how much snow had already fallen! The streets were almost totally white - it looked as though it'd been snowing for 5 hours, I mean, with how much accumulation there was!

I drove Rob to dialysis at 8pm instead of him driving himself like he usually does. In snow, we just share the use of our truck, which thankfully has 4 wheel drive and nicer tires that handle snow better. Plus, the Corolla was already practically snowed in! The center where Rob does nocturnal hemodialysis wanted to start their patients a little bit earlier than normal, which is anywhere between 9 and 10pm. But the earlier start makes for an even earlier morning finish! So Rob called me at 4:30am to come pick him up! Good thing I am a morning person and can be ready and awake enough to drive in adverse conditions at the drop of a hat!

I passed so few people on the road to Rob's clinic. It's only 9 miles away from our house, and I'd venture a guess of passing about 20 cars total on the way there. And most of that drive is on I-85. When I passed by Honey's restaurant, I saw 4 cars in the parking lot, and I thought "hmmm, maybe we should stop and have some breakfast!" But decided against the idea... I just wanted to get back home so we could walk our dogs and then catch some more shut-eye.

Rob and I like to play in the snow, well, that is, whenever it does snow here, which is pretty rare. Last year, we had 2 separate snow days - 1 in January and 1 in early March. The year before that, maybe even 2 or 3 years before that, we didn't get any snow at all? Of course I remember the snow we got in 2005 - it was a half inch and a few hours later, it turned to ice, and thousands of people crashed their cars all over the Triangle. It was featured on CNN - half inch of ice causes metropolitan area of 1.2 million people to FREAK OUT!!! Anyway, during the 2 snow storms last year, we didn't get much more than 2 or 3 inches. Enough to play in and go "oooh, wow!" This year was different.

We received 6 inches of snow. That's twice the "normal" amount, or the amount we are used to. I can't go out the front door because it's snowed in! Sure, I could just take a shovel and scoop it away, but it sounds so much cooler to say, "my front door is snowed in!"

The back door is good to go, though. Whew! Here are a few pictures we took of the snow around our house in Durham, NC.

The first picture you'll see is a 6-inch plastic ruler that I stuck in the snow that was piled on top of our A/C air handler.

Then we made a few videos of us having fun in the snow.

Rob riding his bike through the thick snow. It's a little tough to ride through 6 inches of snow, as you'll see.



Here I am, doing a snow angel on the roof of our garage. Yes, on the ROOF. And yes, I am a GOOF. Hey, and a poet, too!



Now here is Rob riding his bike (and freezing his fingers almost to the point of frostbite because he couldn't find his glove liners...until after he came inside from playtime!)



And here I am, playing on our snow-covered trampoline. Fortunately, the trampoline didn't break. Too bad...if it did, I'm sure my video would be a viral video on YouTube in a matter of hours.



Rob declares, "You're the wiener!" Woo-hoo! My bike racing days are back...just kidding.



And finally, the last video of the snow day, is me driving home from Cary and making a short video of the road conditions near Raleigh-Durham airport. We saw a commuter plane landing and were very surprised by that, as we'd heard that all the airlines cancelled their flights into RDU today.



Hope you enjoyed seeing our pics and videos of the snow! Have a wonderful day/weekend everyone!

Brainstorm Flow Chart Fun

I feel like our blog might be a bit boring, so I was trying to drum up some ideas to snazz it up a little. I was just remembering that my 9th grade English teacher used to have us do brainstorm flow charts as a way to get started on a writing topic. So far, I've blogged about kidney related stuff, my Christian faith, cycling stuff and umm...that's it, I think? I don't want to have one of those "vanilla" blogs. I need some hot fudge and sprinkles! Yum!

I started with "Kidney" and went from there. I wrote the word, circled it, drew a line and then immediately wrote another word that my previous word made me think of. So there's a connection between all the words, even if it doesn't seem like it at first glance. I'm going to use this to draw up some ideas for more "hot fudge sundae" type blogs, because I know people get tired of plain ol' vanilla ice cream!



Yes, I started with "Kidney" and ended with "Cabinets", which I find kind of funny. Why? If someone asked me this question: "Danielle, if Rob had a successful kidney transplant and some rich person came knocking on your door and said he'd grant you one gift of your choice, what would it be?" my answer would most definitely be...new kitchen cabinets!

That's it for my random blog post tonight. Hopefully I haven't bored you to tears yet. But the next time you're feeling bored, go to Facebook, and click on your friends, which will then cause you to smile, and then you'll want to go brush your teeth, and floss, because you have lots of plaque...

Parents-remember what it was like to be a kid-your kids do not need a bubble

I read this on a forum, but it reminded me of my time growing up in Encinitas.


First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter or lard and bacon.
We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight.. WHY?

Because we were always outside playing...that's why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on..
No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were OKAY.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.
After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem
We put lawn chairs on top of skateboards and raced them downhill, no helmets, no pads, just a t-shirt, a pair of O.P. shorts and a pair of Vans.
We found the biggest hill we could find and jump off of it trying to land at the bottom.

We got skinned knees, broken bones, concussions and more. We experienced pain and it was OK. Sure it hurt, but it helped us with our understanding of the world. It is OK to experience sadness, loss, even failure because it equips us to handle the world when Mom or Dad isn't there to protect us.

We did not have Play stations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping pong paddles, or just a bare hand and no one would call child services to report abuse.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

I was just thinking about the times I didn't come home right on time, sometimes a few hours late. The thing about it, I still came home. If you are worried that something bad is going to happen then you are not equipping them with the knowledge to handle the world beyond your front door. Land the helicopter and helping your child grow. Telling them you are worried they will get hurt is the same thing as saying you do not believe that they can do it and that they are destined for failure. I am not sure why I found myself on this rant, possibly hitting a lot of different emotions today after my run in with the neighbors...but that is for another day.

Some people ask if Danielle and I want to have natural born children because they might get PKD from me. While we are leaning toward adoption, if we could have natural born children, we would, for this reason, with all that I have gone through, I would not have wanted my parents to not have me. I love my life, my wife and my friends. Sure, life has been tough, but my father set the example on how to be tough through physical adversity. He fought kidney failure and poor health for almost 20 years. Watching him get knocked down and get right back up was no different to me than watching Rocky get knocked down and just when you thought the fight was over, he would hit back and win the title. He set the example for me on how I need to be through my series of fights up coming.

Feeling a lot like Ice Cube...Today was a good day!

Monday morning usually comes with traditional dread for most, but I had a few plans today that would hopefully make today a welcome change. It started out cool and sunny as I met with my Pastor and another friend at Starbucks to be mentored by my Pastor in the ways of the Lord. We had a good meeting, then Pastor Martie and I left for the church to look at some of the renovations that need to take place. (I am on the properties committee.)

Leaving the church, I called Danielle and my new friend Barry to talk about meeting for lunch. Barry is a kidney transplant recipient who has been giving me advice on what has worked for him in his process of getting a new kidney. We met on Facebook about two years ago when I started dialysis, but had never met, so Danielle and I were looking forward to meeting Barry and his wife Sharon for lunch at Bear Rock Cafe in Cary.

Danielle and I were also going to attempt another bike ride, this time through Umstead Park. We packed up the truck and headed for Cary. When we arrived, we were shocked to find out that Bear Rock Cafe is gone, with nothing to say that it had moved...just gone. We decided to eat at Salsarita's. When Barry and Sharon arrived, we ate taco's on the patio in the beautiful sunshine and shared war stories from dialysis and from his transplant. He gave me a lot of good information on his experience with dialysis and what to expect once a transplant comes available. All in all, meeting Barry and Sharon was great, we are planning on meeting back up in February.

After lunch, Danielle and I drove over to Umstead Park to go for a bike ride considering it was the only place open to ride mountain bikes. We had some heavy rain on Sunday that just drenched the trails. We rode from the parking lot off of Harrison Ave down the main trail to Old Reedy Creek by the pond, then up the hill and onto Reedy Creek Greenway up to the Museum of Art.



We turned around and rode back, then past the hill up to the truck, and up the other side. We made to the top of the first hill heading toward the RDU overlook and turned around to head to the truck. Today was awesome, I didn't have any dizzy spells or weakness today which was reassuring especially with my bouts of low blood pressure as of late. All told, we rode 8 miles in just over an hour on somewhat hilly terrain.



After the ride, we rewarded ourselves with dinner at Los Tres Magueyes with fried ice cream for dessert.



I am not smiling here because it feels like I have chips stuck in my teeth.



And to close with a picture of my beautiful and funny wife.



She is saying,"See, I don't have anything in my teeth."

Ugh, waiting for new meds to take hold really stinks

Monday, I came in to treatment, way over my dry weight (8.5 Kilos), but I was trying something new to help get my blood pressure up. My Doc has added midodrine, a synthetic adrenaline to try an tighten up my blood vessels during treatment in order to get my blood pressure up.

When I arrived, I knew my BP would be up, just from the extra weight, but we tried the new meds anyway. Everything went according to plan, even when I got myself down near my dry weight. I went and had a great day at work, followed by a nice day off the following day. Danielle had signed me up for a wood working class, so I had fun planing a big block of cherry wood, then cutting it into legs for a table.

When I arrived for treatment on Wednesday, things seemed to be going well. I was going to take off 6 kilos to finish getting back down to normal, but thought I should also take an Ambien to help me sleep. The result, the blood pressure was back down to where it had been. I went on to have one of the lousiest days yet. The best way to describe it is being seasick and drunk and not being able to do anything about it. I tried taking a midodrine to see if that would help, nothing, I didn't feel it at all, which makes me feel that Monday had more to do with my weight than it had to do with my new meds.

I plan on talking to my doctor again to see if it might be my adrenal glands, they say that it is rare for there to be problems with the adrenal glands, but I feel that I am a rare case, not many ESRD patients have had their kidneys removed, so I thought it might be the problem. If this doesn't get sorted out soon, I may need to make a move to the corporate office at work. I love what I do at the shop and really don't want to take a pay cut, but I will have to do what I have to do to keep myself from passing out on the Sales floor at work.

Scrabble fans! Now you can play and eat at the same time!

Last Saturday, I visited with a friend of mine in Raleigh. She offered me a snack of some Cheez-Its and I declined at first because Cheez-Its are just not my cup of tea. I'd rather eat some Cheetos if I'm craving some orange-colored salty snack! Well, I changed my mind to the idea of Cheez-Its because I saw that they were a special edition kind - the Scrabble Junior edition!

So we all started picking through the bag and found the letters that made up our names. Then I discovered that the back of the box had a fun little "board" for playing an actual game of Scrabble. I made this for fun:



I didn't even get a Triple Letter tile for my "K" in kidney! Man, the real Scrabble board for adults gives you Triple points for that spot!

Really though...if you're reading this and you have 2 healthy kidneys, would you consider the possibility of donating one of them to Rob? Please?

Cute dog...but man, that's a gnarly scar dude!

I took this video 10 days after Rob's double nephrectomy surgery this past summer. We were on Ocracoke Island, just chilling out by the beach for a couple hours. I got in the water for a bit, but Rob didn't, of course...as you'll see by the scar. The scar has healed up very nicely since then.

Attempted mountain bike ride in Virginia

Rob had Monday, Dec. 28 off from work, as did I. The weather was pretty, although bitterly cold, but we decided to get off our lazy bums and go for a mountain bike ride. We chose to go to Occoneechee State Park in Clarksville, VA. I'd been there once before, back in August. They have a nice 7.5 mile multi-use trail called the Panhandle Trail.

On the 55 mile drive there, we played our new favorite road trip game "Counting Baptist Churches". Last time we played it, we drove to the Outer Banks (300 mile round trip), and the total we counted was 24. This trip to Virginia was much shorter, but was driven on more country backroads, which is home to more little country churches. Rob fell asleep through half of the drive, but I motored on, as country drives are one of my favorite pastimes!

Me driving on US Highway 15 North, and probably singing along loudly to whatever song was on the iPod:



Once we arrived at the trailhead, we got dressed in our cycling gear. We brought many layers of technical cycling clothing, but I forgot one essential piece - my ear warmers! It was about 39 degrees that day, and windy, too! (gusts up to 20 mph) So I had to wear my helmet with my hair over my ears, which looks totally stupid, ask any cycling enthusiast and they'll tell you it's true!



Rob offered to let me wear his skull cap, but I retorted, "NO, you need it! Your bald head would freeze! At least I have hair on top of my head..." to which Rob smiled and said, "Hey now..." What a nice wife I am! I mean, what a loving husband Rob is!

Here we are about 1 mile into our ride. Not even warmed up yet, but stopping to take a picture anyway...



We look cold, don't we?



Because of the big snow storm that had come through this part of Virginia a week before Christmas, there were lots of downed trees and brush in the trail. Like this one, which with my awesome MAD SKILLS on the bike, I tried to bunny-hop over...unsuccessfully, I might add!



Of course I'm joking, I didn't try to really bunny-hop over that!

Rob and I rode really slow because 1.) we are really out of aerobic shape, 2.) Rob is a dialysis patient and he doesn't expect to be anywhere near as fast as he used to be, and 3.) Rob's low blood pressure and dizzy spells force us to go slow and take it easy. All of Rob's doctors and nurses say they want him to exercise, because it's really good for his heart. Most dialysis patients do little to no exercise, rightfully so because of all the side effects dialysis has. But if a dialysis patient has any sliver of energy, they are encouraged to use that energy aerobically.

So we tried. Slow, cold mountain bike ride on easy fire roads. It wasn't that great of a ride because Rob kept getting dizzy spells. At least he found a cozy bench to lay on for a while:



This ended up being our turn around point. No worries, we made it back to the truck safely, thank God.

It was the last week of deer hunting season in Virginia, and we were riding on the side of the trail that was OPEN to hunting. Probably a dumb idea, as we don't have any cycling gear that is blaze orange. At the end of our ride, we came across 2 hunters who said, "You should be glad we didn't think you were a deer! Where's your orange?"

Hmmm, I guess we'll have to invest in a 2 blaze orange vests to wear next winter when we ride during hunting season!

Here is Rob smiling at the end of our ride, only because we know we were going to sit in the warmth of our idling truck with the heater turned on full-blast!



Here's a video of Rob giving a ride report:



After warming up in the car and eating our lunch (PBJ on homemade bread, pineapple and frosted animal cookies!), we drove home the long way. East on US Highway 58 took us through the small town of Boydton, VA, where we ooh'ed and aah'ed at the beautiful historic homes, drove through the quaint historic downtown, and then decided to stop to look around at a cool antique shop.



They had maybe a thousand oil lamps, big and small, and a couple hundred cookie jars. It was fun to look around and make small talk with the owner and his dog, cutely named "Boo-Boo". After that, we drove home on Highway 1, through small towns like Norlina, which is now officially my favorite town name to say, because it's impossible to say Norlina without sounding like a true southerner! Mind you, we were still playing our car game - Counting Baptist Churches, so we were really keeping our eyes peeled for churches along the road.

We stopped in Kittrell, NC to grab a hot cocoa and to stretch our legs. It became harder and harder to spot the baptist churches as the night sky became darker. So we may have missed a few, but by the end of our drive, we'd counted 28!

It was a great way to spend the afternoon doing something fun and productive!

Christmas 2009 recap

On December 18, Rob went into the ER at Duke for a weird episode he had while at work. He complained of a sort of mental confusion with his speech and auditory processing. When he texted me at work to let me know that he was headed for the ER, my heart dropped into my stomach and I was very worried. I prayed almost the whole drive over to the hospital (I'm so thankful I work so close to Duke). Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you - 1 Peter 5:7 I was crying, too, and anyone who knows me will know and understand that if I'm crying, I'm pretty worried or sad. Thankfully my tears dried up by the time I reached the parking garage. Rob is pretty emotional for a man (I like it!) and if he sees me crying or looking worried, it adds to his emotions and I can't do that.

It was 5pm when Rob was all checked in at the ER. Mainly, it was just lots of back and forth testing and waiting, testing and getting a room, watching dumb shows on the TV, and dozing off in between visits from nurses, ER docs and neurologists. Thankfully, we had 3 great friends who came to the ER to pray, eat and visit with us for a while - Pastor Martie, Heather and Leslie. I ate my Duke Hospital staple: Eel sushi rolls and chocolate/butterscotch pudding. I'm not joking, this is what I eat for dinner every time Rob is in the hospital!

I should note that this night at the ER was supposed to be my second-to-last night working at the Gap. I'd put in notice to my boss earlier in the week that I just had too much on my plate, and I don't know why I agreed to work a PT job in addition to my regular duties. Never again will I try to work more than 45 hours per week. It just doesn't work for me. And if you throw in stress about Rob's health and trips to the ER...you get the picture.

After all the tests were done at the ER, the neurologist concluded that Rob did not have a TIA, or mini-stroke, as they're commonly called. Whew. Big relief. But the docs are concerned about Rob's perpetual low blood pressure. It's been so low lately that he keeps getting dizzy spells at work, around the house, and a few times, he's had to be physically supported by someone (me, or co-workers/customers at work) because his legs will give out while he's working out his dizzy spell. So now we are on a quest to find out why his BP is so low, what he can do to fix it, and how to handle it in the present.

1 week after this ER visit, we celebrated Christmas, which was beautifully quiet and nice. We had a yummy special breakfast that Rob cooked. He made his favorite breakfast recipe, courtesy of his Mom: Eggs Goldenrod. We added bacon to it this time for extra crunch!



After breakfast, we went to First United Antioch Baptist Church, located in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Durham (1.4 miles west of our house). They were giving a free hot meal to anyone who wanted/needed it. This is not a homeless shelter, just a neighborhood church who decided to serve the poor and needy on the day we celebrate the birth of our Savior. I'd spoken to the reverend earlier in the week and asked if we could help at all. He said he'd be delighted to have us help, as they were in desperate need of more volunteers. When we got there, we were told they had more than enough volunteers, so if we wanted, we could just sit with the people and talk to them as they ate. So that's what we did. In addition to that, I read a few books to a handful of children who attended the dinner with their families.

Here's a pic of me reading to a 3 year old boy named TJ. He listened to me for about 4 minutes, but then picked up the "Story of Jesus" book and started "reading" it to me!



After the church meal, we went home to open our gifts. I love giving gifts, and this year's big gift for Rob was so exciting it was hard for me to hold it in until Christmas Day! I wrapped his "big" gift in wrapping paper that said Santa was Here. And instead of writing "To: Rob, Love: Danielle", I wrote, "To: Rob, From: God". Kind of cute, but oh so true. Because God is the provider and source of all things, even Christmas gifts. In the pic I took of Rob just moments before he opened his gift, I find it sort of funny that the "R" and "E" was not visible (so it reads "Santa was He"). It didn't dawn on me until this year, that the idea of telling your children that Santa Claus is the one who brings them presents on Christmas Day is really, really dumb. I won't go into all of why I think that, I'll save that for another blog.



Here's the video I took of Rob opening his big gift. Now that I'm writing this, I remembered that I let him open this gift on Christmas Eve. Sorry it's so dark.



He was so excited about his gift! I love giving good gifts! I can't wait until we have children...it will be so exciting to watch them open their gifts on Christmas (and they won't think that a jolly man wearing a red suit brought them to the house all the way from the North Pole)

Overall, we had a great Christmas and we received and gave many cool gifts. I got some hand-knit socks from Rob's Mom:



and Rob got a cozy hand-knit beanie from his Mom:



and lots of good books to read, for us:



and for the children we'll have in the future:



My bosses gave me Thursday, Friday and Monday off from work this year. It was such a nice 5 day weekend. Praise and glory go to God for providing us with such a beautiful Christmas experience.