Oh Positive: Rob GOT a Kidney Transplant!

The Ache

2011-01-25T09:51:00.006-05:00

Ok, I am not a poet, but an idea for this struck me on my way into work this morning.

The Ache
from years of pain
the ache resonates
through my body
at different points
from different trauma

Collisions

Crashing

Colliding

Incisions

Punctures

And so on

Each day, I feel each one
one at a time

first, I notice the ache in my arm
the scarring from over 1,000 sticks
from large needles
the clot that remains from the damage
aches like a heart after it breaks

then, I notice the ache in my shoulder
from repeated dislocations
impacts from years ago
the pain is such that a knife has been plunged
deep inside

the ache in my neck
from stingers
bicycle crashes
the compressed spinal column
the slipped disc

the hip that was dislocated years ago
playing football with friends
the doctors reprimand sits in my mind
for playing, when I had been told not to
two years before
now, on long hikes, I need to make repeated stops
to stretch my hip or risk not finishing

the ankles, sprained and strained
now, to the point of not being able to do either
the ache that sets in when it gets cold
the cracks and creaks

my abdomen, rife with scarring
the evidence of five surgeries
the hernias that remain
the hope of repair to come soon
the ache of two more procedures
and the preparation to come.

the aches and pains of life
are showing
as I feel each one
it takes me back to a time
in my life
that through the pain
I remember fondly.

The greatest numbing agent
that gets me through the pain
is the love of my wife
the hope of my daughter to be
and living my life for Christ
knowing what he endured for me
that my pain is minor in compare.

We have a new blog!

2010-11-01T19:41:00.002-04:00

Check out our new blog here:

http://ten24ten.blogspot.com

We will have lots of updates on the new kidney.

Kidney Transplant - Rob got one!

2010-10-27T00:17:00.003-04:00

Just a little update for any of you who happen to be reading this and don't know the news already - but Rob received his kidney transplant at 2:00am this past Sunday, October 24!

We are so excited at this new gift of life, and Rob is doing well in his recovery. The new kidney is producing a decent amount of urine (around 100 ml every 2 hours) and he doesn't have much pain from the incision site.

There is so much I could write about the transplant and the events surrounding the past few days, but I just don't have the time to do so right now. Of course a new blog title and url will be mandatory sometime, too!

Here's a picture of Rob that I took on Monday evening. He is smiling really big because he is eating solid food for the first time in 53 hours!

Not sure what to do

2010-10-08T14:01:00.004-04:00

(I'm publishing this post now because I'd never read it until just now. It brought tears to my eyes, remembering this time in our lives. Rob wrote this just a few weeks before his transplant came along.)

It has been an on going problem for the past few months where my fistula has been bothering me. The problem is, it keeps clotting off or becoming inaccessible which makes it hard to do dialysis if I can't access the access. It came to a head on Wednesday night when the tech's had to stick me 6 or so times to no avail. I know they were trying hard, but the thrill was weak and they kept pulling out clots. The disturbing part is when I go to see a Doctor, for some reason, they can feel it and they tell me it feels strong and there shouldn't be a problem sticking it.

I want to ask them to come to my clinic to do my sticks if it is so easy.

Anyway, I went to the clinic that clears out the problem and the entire time, the Doc is telling me how hard my arm is to work on. He had wires and ballons in my arm all the way up to my shoulder, cleaning out different pathways, trying to make something last. He showed me what he was doing on the monitor and nothing wanted to stay open, even after hours of trying to blow them open. Needless to say, my left arm feels like it was crushed in a compactor.

Danielle came back to pick me up and take me to dialysis and we drove on up to Davita. I got set up and ready for the stick. I am not sure if my arm was too tender from all the work that had just been done on it or what, but the sticks felt like they were driving nails into my arm. Even then, then pain normally subsides right after the stick, this didn't. They had trouble keeping pressures at a decent level throughout the treatment and this was the first time my treatment felt like torture for the entire time. In order to be able to run, I had to have my elbow hyperextended and the placement of the needles hurt. I tried to put myself in a happy place and floated in and out of it. The pain kept dragging me back to reality. I tried to sleep, but I never fully went under because of the pain in my arm.

Once the Bataan Death treatment was over, Danielle and I ran over to Green Tango and picked up some dinner to take to Forest Hills park. It was such a beautiful afternoon, we couldn't resist.

The rest of the day, my arm felt like it was clamped in a vice, then I started to really worry. Crazy thoughts started going through my head, like I won't be able to keep proper blood flow to my arm and end up losing it. How am I supposed to hold my wife and my daughter with only one arm?!?

Birthday Hike at Umstead State Park: Sycamore Loop Trail

2010-10-06T22:37:00.016-04:00

It's someone's birthday today. I'm not going to name any names, so you'll just have to guess who turned another year older.

I had a great day today. I slept in late (until about 11:45am) because I needed to catch up on some lost sleep during the past week. My parents had come to visit for 10 days, and I was staying up late, around 1-1:30am every night, sometimes later, and only getting maybe 6-7 hours of sleep. So I definitely needed a recovery day to catch up on sleep!

The weather was gorgeous today and I just couldn't justify staying inside the house all day. I chose to go to Umstead State Park in Raleigh for a hike because I hadn't visited there in a long time. Lately, I've just been hiking in Hillsborough or North Durham. So a visit to Umstead sounded great. It used to be my favorite training location way back when, you know, when I was a super fit athlete and all I wanted to do was work out.

I parked at the Bike and Bridle trailhead parking area which is in the Crabtree Creek section of the park, which can be accessed by entering the park at the Highway 70 entrance. As soon as I stepped out of the truck, I breathed in a lungful of pure nature. Ahhh, so nice. The sky was a beautiful shade of light blue and there was no one in sight. Pure silence in the middle of nature. Ahhh, double dose of nice. Then a few seconds later, a 747 from nearby RDU roared overhead, disrupting my moment of zen. Ah, boo! Oh well, it beats the constant noise of I-85 you hear when you hike at Occoneechee Mountain in Hillsborough (last week's hike with my parents).

Here's a picture of the beautiful sky just before the loud airplane flew overhead:

I started hiking on the parking loop access road until I reached a locked gate with a brown sign on it. The sign stated who and how to yield to other trail users. I still get a kick out of these signs out here, even though I've been looking at them for 7 years. Back home in California, the hiker is the most important trail user. Cyclists and horseback riders both yield to hikers. But out here in NC, everyone yields to the almighty horseback rider. I don't understand it. How does a hiker walking at a pace of 3 miles per hour threaten a 2000 pound horse walking at about the same rate? Eh, whatever...I walked past the gate and continued walking straight until I hit Graylyn Road.

Okay, here's my route: Turn right on Graylyn (multi-use fire road), then right on Sycamore trail (hiking only trail, I think? Maybe horses are allowed?). When you get to the first fork in the trail, go left. Don't go right, because that would take you back to the parking lot. Stay on Sycamore trail, which is a wonderful trail that will keep you on your toes. Loads of rocks and roots are just waiting to trip you up! After a while, you'll see a creek, and if you look close enough, you can find a little trail that goes off to the right and it parallels said creek. I was amazed at how much water was flowing in this creek. I had to take a picture:

I kept walking along the creek until I found something that really brought some excitement to my hike - a waterfall!

I never knew there was a waterfall in Umstead! Which is surprising, due to the amount of time I've spent out here over the years, riding, hiking and trail running!

Here are some pretty pictures of the little waterfall:

First picture, you can see that the total vertical drop of the fall might be around 3 feet. But hey, it's a waterfall. And the sound of it is so relaxing!

A closer picture of the falling water:

My comfy trail running shoes wanted to be in the picture, too:

If I had a comfy foam padded seat, I could've sat there on the rocks for a long time just enjoying the sound of the water and being in nature, in perfect hiking weather. But I decided to keep moving, being the ever-adventurous person I am.

I climbed up the rocks to see if I could see where the waterfall was coming from. I found out - a little dam of some sort. I guessed that it was overflowing from Sycamore Lake.

I was right. Sycamore Lake was too full from all the rain we got last week. I've heard this is a good lake to go fishing in.

At this point, I decided to turn back and get back onto the Sycamore Loop trail.

I kept my pace steady, but not fast. I took short little breaks whenever I needed. Solo hiking can be a little boring, so I kept myself awake by singing along to whatever song was on the random iPod shuffle, or by talking to myself or to Baby Girl Newton.

Here's a pretty view of the trail:

Finally I reached the almost-halfway point of my hike - Graylyn Road again. There's a nice bridge over the creek at this point, and I sat down to take a picture and stretch my legs a little.

I thought about just cutting my hike short and taking Graylyn Road up to the parking area, but then I thought that would be kind of wussy, so I kept on hiking Sycamore trail, now on the eastern side of Graylyn. Here's a map of my hike. I'm clueless with Photoshop, I could only figure out how to draw my route with a gray paint line...

The hike started at the "P" that I circled. So I've already covered my hike from the start point all the way through the first section of Sycamore Loop trail. Now I'm at the bottom most point on the map, and entering the eastern side of the loop. As you can see, this section of the loop is a little longer than the western side of the loop. But I felt strong enough to finish. Or so I thought...

I bit off a little more than I could chew. I only took 2 more pictures the entire rest of the hike. And they're not even that great, otherwise I'd share them with you.

When I reached the end of the Sycamore Loop trail, I was never happier to see Graylyn Rd. I knew it would only be another 15 minutes until I reached the parking lot!

I had a lot of fun on this hike. Beautiful trail, weather, scenery and solitude. I couldn't ask for a better afternoon on my birthday!

Rapid Blogging - Blog #4: My job, or lack thereof...

2010-08-06T23:39:00.002-04:00

I am currently unemployed. And the decision to become unemployed was 100% mine. Yes, I know I wrote a blog post months ago about my "awesome new job" and how much I was loving it. But things change, oh boy, do they ever change!

What started off as a great job in April, soon turned into a mediocre job in late May/early June, which then turned into a "I'm not so sure about this job, but I'll hang in there and see what God has planned for me" in late June. The results of hanging in there? Well, I found out that my job had officially turned BAD, and there was nothing left for me to do except take my experience and leave.

I gave my resignation on July 2. It came as quite a shock to 2 of the Board members. How my resignation was received by the others on the Board, I'll never know. But I sure would like to know...especially from the person who was responsible for the chain of events that led to my choice to leave. When I say "person who was responsible", I don't mean the person or people who I point my finger at and say it was their fault. NO...it wasn't any one person's fault. I really mean the person who is in the leadership position at my old job. Anyone in a leadership position knows that when something goes wrong, there will be some blame assigned to them. That's just the nature of management and leadership. During all of the craziness that led up to my resignation, I never once tried to point the finger at one person and try to give the blame away. I took on some of the blame. I said things like, "I know I could've handled that situation differently. I learned something from that incident and I will not handle future problems this way." I humbled myself. I never once tried to lord my position or title over my employees, yet it seemed as though I did by the interpretation of my actions.

Even when given the chance to tell my side of the story to the Board of Directors and committee members, I told the truth of the matter, which came from my heart and not my head. I'm thankful that I am a Christian, that God has given me grace through faith which led to my salvation. Because of His saving grace, the Holy Spirit lives inside of me and that Spirit is God Himself, who is with me all the time, helping guide me and direct me in the ways I should go. Sometimes we encounter circumstances in our life where we feel deeply troubled. We wonder and ask ourselves, "Is this the right thing for me?" and then we get down and pray and ask "God, what do you want me to do? Show me and lead me to your will in this situation. I cannot do this alone."

I sought counsel from my Pastor on the troubles I was facing on the job. The outcome of the session was that my heart was not in right place. I was trying to fix the problem on my own. (even though I was not aware of it, I thought I was giving it up to God and trusting Him) So I prayed and prayed, and read the Word a lot (the book of James, chapters 1-3 is where I read from for the week leading up to my resignation). I sought after Jesus during these struggles, and He led me to speak with some people who were unrelated to my job who were able to confirm and answer my question about whether to continue in the job or not. The answer was no, you need to get out of there, this job is not right.

So I resigned and immediately, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I felt that everything was going to be okay, I had made the right decision and God will continue to take care of us, like He always does and will do.

The Bible verse that helped my decision is James 4:17. It reads, "Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin." So if you knew that a co-worker was stealing from the petty cash drawer, and you know that it is wrong (duh), and still did not speak up and tell a manager about it, then you would be in the wrong. You would be sinning.

Well, my situation wasn't about someone stealing. It's about something you'd never find specifically in the Bible... which makes it difficult for some people to understand. Even unbelievers and agnostics know the basics of the major no-no's in the Bible. Thou shalt not commit murder, thou shalt not steal...etc. But for something that is based on professional standards, it's a lot harder to prove right from wrong, or rather, right from acceptable.

As Club Manager of Eno Valley Swim and Racquet Club, I was responsible for managing my staff of lifeguards and snack bar workers. Each worker had a list of standards that I had laid out at the beginning of summer which chronicled my expectations for them. You know, things like, "Be on time for work. If you're going to be late, please call me and let me know." Well, the expectation/standard that I gave to the lifeguards which eventually led to my resignation was this:

On duty lifeguards will sit in the lifeguard stand, attentively scanning their zone of the pool, and wearing the lifeguard rescue tube properly: strap across the chest, and the tube placed on the knees/thighs.

To make a long story short, the lifeguards did not like that standard/expectation. Why? Because they didn't have that as a standard the year before, or any of the 29 years before that either. The Club Manager before me did not care enough to mandate the professional standard of wearing your lifeguard uniform the proper way. The lifeguards resisted, and I reminded them. "Please wear your strap and place the tube on your knees...thank you!" -- I said that at least two times to the majority of my lifeguard staff. Well, the lifeguards finally had enough of me enforcing this standard/policy/rule of mine, and they fought back. They whined and complained to their parents and the Board members. The Board members felt sorry for them. The Board called a closed meeting between them and the lifeguards, and I was not invited. Then the Board wanted to hear my side of things. I presented to them the evidence of my staff not following the standard, along with the professional standards from the American Red Cross.

The end result was my boss telling me to "get rid of that rule and just let them do what they want when they're up in the guard stand." First, it was a directive. Then, the second time he said it during the same conversation, it was a suggestion. Then, when I asked him to put this all in writing, he got mad at me and yelled at me for making his job harder, and how awful that was to even ask because he has taken so much time out of his personal life this past week....

So, to conclude: It is wrong (to me) to allow lifeguards to NOT wear their strap and to let them use the guard tube as a foot rest. So since that is wrong to me, if I do it (because my boss told me, err, I mean, suggested I do it) it is sin. Hmmm, to sin or not to sin? That is the question! A Christian friend of mine put it this way, "If he is asking you to compromise on what you believe is right, then you know what you have to do. When you compromise from righteousness, it only leads to unrighteousness." Well said.

So I have been unemployed since July 2. But a week later, I found out that we were pregnant! So really, I do have a "job". I'm growing and nurturing a baby. And I'm still doing my "job" as wife to Rob. And all the other numerous things that go into it, like cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc. So I'm staying busy, or, as busy as I can, due to the effects of pregnancy on my body. I've dealt with morning sickness twice, general nausea too many times to count, and out-of-this-world tiredness like nothing I've ever felt before!

So I am really very happy to be unemployed right now. Sure, it'd be great to work a little outside of the home, to help pay more towards debts and future bills, but it's okay for now. I applied to a handful of jobs a few weeks ago, and nothing has come of them (and I'm well qualified for them), so I'm just going to be content with what I have that God has continued to bless us with: food, clothing, shelter, Rob's job, the new life growing inside of my womb... and trust that if God has work in my future, that it will come and I will know and be sure of it.

Thanks for reading!

Rapid Blogging - Blog #3: Rob's Health

2010-08-06T22:36:00.002-04:00

Rob is still dialyzing 3 times a week at the nocturnal clinic. It works for us. Unfortunately, it didn't work out so well for our dialysis friend, who recently transferred out of the nocturnal clinic to an afternoon shift at a nearby clinic. I'm glad to hear that he is at least a little bit happier at the new clinic and dialyzing at a different time. But I sure do miss being able to say hi and catch up with him whenever I went to visit the nocturnal clinic!

Rob has good days and some bad days. His good days are great, and his bad days are awful. The in-between kind of days are best described as "meh". For those of you who have never heard the term "meh" before, here is the Wikipedia definition of it:

"Meh" is an interjection, often an expression of apathy, indifference, or boredom. However, it can also be used to indicate agreement or disagreement. It can also be an adjective, meaning mediocre or boring.

Well, that definition sure doesn't hit it on the head. How about this definition, from the characters who created it (the Simpson's):

"It was actually spelled out in The Simpsons when Homer is trying to pry the kids away from the TV with a suggestion for a day trip. They both just reply 'meh' and keep watching TV; he asks again and Lisa says 'We said MEH! M-E-H, meh!' "

There, now that one is better. Life on dialysis is a lot like that kind of "meh". Anyone reading this who is or ever was on dialysis at some point in their life (or who is a caretaker or spouse to someone who is/was) will understand that.

Back in the early days of dialysis, way back in 2008, Rob actually did feel better after a session of dialysis. His blood was cleaned out and there weren't a bunch of toxins floating around his body. But as dialysis has continued, and Rob had his double nephrectomy, and the wait on the transplant list continued to click 1 day closer every day, things have gotten tougher.

There are more bad/awful and "meh" days than there are good days. Rob still continues to struggle with low blood pressure. Every time he gets up from the couch, the bed, or stands up from bending over, he has to lean against a wall or a door frame for 10-15 seconds until the dizziness goes away. He sometimes also gets ringing in his ears and his eyesight is affected (gets blurry or shadowy). It does worry me, but what is worry?

Worry is just an emotion. Everyone has worried about something in their life before. Wikipedia (again) says that "Worry is the state of engaging in chains of thoughts and images of a negative and an uncontrollable nature in which mental attempts are made to avoid anticipated potential threats." Worry can sometimes lead to fear, but I have not allowed it to go that far. Most of the time, I try to turn my worry into thoughts and images of a POSITIVE and ever-lasting love that is promised to us from God. Everyday is a gift from God. We are not promised a new day, and there's nothing we can do or say or think that will prove otherwise. If the Lord wills, I will wake up tomorrow and thank Him for the continued breath of life. If the Lord wills, Rob will wake up tomorrow, connected to his dialysis machine, and thank God for His creation, His continued sustainability from a machine that sucks life out of him and pumps it back in, continuously for 8 hours. We have nothing to fear when we learn to put our trust in God. I do trust God every day. I trust that His plan is better than any plan I could create in my mind. And this trust is part of my faith. Faith in God for all the things that have happened in the past, present and those that will happen in the future.

Speaking of the future, faith about the future is usually called "hope". I hope for many things. I hope to have a healthy baby next March. I hope that Rob gets a kidney transplant. Actually, I hope he gets one soon. I hope that our dialysis friend gets a kidney transplant, too. I hope that our church will continue to grow and bring more people to the saving knowledge of Christ, changing their lives and the community around them for the better. I hope for... well, I could go on, but I'll spare you.

What do you hope for?

Rob has been on the transplant list now for around 1130 days. That's about 3 years and 1 month.

In other health related news, Rob had a minor surgery last month for an unrelated-to-dialysis condition. I won't go into details because we don't really want to talk about it. But it's nothing scary, so don't worry!

The most recent "bad" day that Rob had was this past Tuesday. As he was coming off of the machine after treatment all night, the dialysis tech made a mistake. Instead of having Rob's blood pumped back into him with saline (when the machine is turned off at the end of treatment, there is still blood in the tubes and inside the filter/machine, and that has to be returned to Rob's body), the blood was pumped further OUT of him and into the bag of saline. Yeah, backwards... not the right direction. Then, when the needles were being taken out of his arm, I don't know exactly what happened, but there was a blood spill which resulted in more of Rob's blood going where it shouldn't: on to his bed sheets and on the floor. Ugh. Groan. Sigh.

We know accidents happen. That's why Rob isn't holding a grudge on this certain dialysis tech who made the mistake. But mistakes do have consequences. Unfortunately, the consequences aren't paid by the person who made the mistake. Rob felt so horrible due to the amount of blood that wasn't returned to his body, that he took the day off from work. He had zero energy that day. We spent the day on the couch watching multiple movies and eating leftovers from dinner the night before.

Oh, and lately, part of why Rob has been feeling so yucky and low-energy is because his hemoglobin levels are too low. Normal hemoglobin levels should fall somewhere in between 12 and 14 g/dL. Patients with kidney failure have reduced hemoglobin levels (just like cancer patients who are undergoing chemotherapy do, too). That's why they give him EPO during his dialysis treatments. Well, recently, someone at the National Institute for Kidney Whatever decided to lower the acceptable limit for "normal" hemoglobin for patients on dialysis. It used to be 12-14. Now it is acceptable for Rob's hemo to drop into the 10-12 range and be okay. So Rob's last lab results showed that his hemoglobin level is 10.2, which means, "all is good". News flash: no, it's not! Whoever is responsible for lowering this acceptable level should feel shame. Yes, your decision to lower the level is probably saving dialysis companies MILLIONS of dollars every month, because it means they use less Epogen and therefore pay less money to Amgen, the creator of this miracle drug. Woo-hoo. Good for you. I hope you sleep better.

We asked the dialysis nurse if they could give Rob more EPO, since his last hemoglobin level was only 10.2. You can guess what the answer was.

I guess that about sums up Rob's health. I feel bad for ending on such a negative note. But, it's life, and it's our life, and I am compelled to share it with whoever reads it.

Thanks for reading!

Rapid Blogging - Blog #2: The Big News

2010-08-06T21:59:00.006-04:00

Okay, most of you that read this blog are either family or friends who are close enough to us to have already heard the "Big News", so I'm sure most of you will not find this blog entry informative. However, I'm sure you'll enjoy reading it.

On Saturday, July 10, Rob and I found out that we are expecting a baby! Wow! :)

It took us completely by surprise. We had it confirmed 3 days later by my family practice doctor, who told us that our due date was February 22, 2011. Then, on July 20, I went to my first OB appointment at Duke Women's Health Associates at Patterson Place, where I had my first ultrasound. Rob came with me to this appointment, and we both got to hear the baby's heartbeat. Super wow! Here is the first picture of our baby:

They measured the embryo in 3 different places and they calculated a new due date for us: March 6, 2011. It's so different than the first due date they gave because my menstrual cycles aren't exactly regular, and so it's more accurate to just measure the baby than it is to ask me the date of my last period.

Rob and I are so excited about this news that it's hard to put into words! We called our parents to share the great news, and then we blabbed it to the world, well, our social network, right after that. We just couldn't hold in the news! I know a lot of people wait until the first trimester is complete before they announce the news to "everyone else"...but we're not those kind of people! You know Rob and I, we both love to talk and share good news!

So as of today, I am 9 weeks and 5 days into the pregnancy. I had my 2nd OB appointment yesterday and it went very well. My doc praised me for healthy weight gain, good blood pressure and for asking good questions. She tried to hear the baby's heartbeat yesterday with a fetal doppler, but couldn't find it, which she said is normal this early in the pregnancy. So she decided to give me another ultrasound where she could check on the baby's heartbeat much easier. Which produced another picture of our baby (this is much higher quality):

I think it's totally amazing to see the difference between the first ultrasound picture and the second one! What an absolute miracle this life is! The 1st picture literally looked like a diagonal blob, and a little over 2 weeks later, it's actually looking like a baby! I see a large head (maybe we will name him Sir Issac...just kidding!), a tiny nose, 2 tiny arms and 2 tiny legs!

God is so wonderful! In the midst of all of our daily suffering through dialysis and polycystic kidneys among other things, God gives us a beautiful, precious gift. Something we've wanted for so long. Something we've been trying and hoping for. Something we thought we weren't going to get, hence all the talk and action in the past year about wanting to adopt children...

God is the creator of this baby and He will get all the glory for it!
Thanks for reading!

Rapid Blogging - Blog #1: I'm a Copy-Cat!

2010-08-06T21:44:00.002-04:00

It's been months since the last blog post here, and that's months too long, I know and I'm sorry! So, in attempt to win back the 4 readers who check up on our blog, I am going to bombard this blog with multiple entries tonight. Each blog entry will be about a different topic. Once I'm done, then you 4 readers will be all updated on our life, that is, as of August 6, 2010. Life changes so quickly that tomorrow could be a completely different day.

The purpose of this blog entry is to point out the fact that I am a total copy-cat. Or, as I would say when I was 10 years old, I'm a " total byter". I just read our friend's blog and he came up with the "Rapid Blogging" idea for his blog, since he hadn't updated in oh, a week. Which for him is a long time. But come on, really? The last blog post I did was all about my "new" job. HA! And it was written in April. It is now August and while I'd like to say that time was flying and I had no time to update the blog...I can't, because that would be an outright lie.

So, in an effort to continue being a total byter and copy-cat, let me just say "Meeeeoooww!" and go grab a Keebler oatmeal-chocolate chip cookie from my kitchen...I'm gonna take a giant bite out of it!

Okay, that was a lame joke. Sorry. Will try to be more funny and less stupid in the other blog entries tonight. :(

Learning my limits

2010-04-20T15:14:00.011-04:00

Well, last week was an eye opener of sorts. I have found either my physical limits or how far my base has fallen through my illness. I went for a lone mountain bike ride at Lake Crabtree and started out feeling really good, the bike was dialed, my legs felt a little rusty, but strong none the less. As I rode up the trail, I made it out to the main fire road that leads to loops 2-4, the pump track, and the beginner jump line.

I stopped at the jump line and ran through 6 times. It was the first time on my Mt. Vision (my bike). I was also using new tires that were a lot smoother, so they were a lot faster. The first run through on the small line, I over shot the landing on the first two of the three tabletops, but the bike was stable. Granted I am not getting tons of air, just enough to keep it fun.

After getting my fill on the jumps, I started down Loop 2 to connector E, then over to Loop 3 to 4 and while I was on Loop 4, my head started to throb, my back started to ache, and my hearing started to fade. I would focus on shaking it off and saying little prayers to have the strength to overcome it. I headed back to the car, then hung out and revived myself. I noticed that I was at 30 minutes of total riding time.
Hmmph! It is frustrating and encouraging at the same time. I know I am doing more than anyone at my clinic (physically, that is.) We dragged our friend to the Kidney Kare 5K to end up being the only two people on dialysis that showed up to run. The only two in the Triangle! With the way I feel after treatment, I am shocked that not one other patient showed up. What I mean by frustrating is, I used to be able to run well, and I am not even trying to compare myself to when I was in high school or college. Just a few years ago...wow, has it already been 6 years!!! Back in 2004, I had myself back in shape, to the point I was down to the weight and size I was when I was a Junior in High School. (202 lbs. and a 34 inch waist...almost 32).

Anyway, back to my new limits. I made it home, had a shower, then gathered my things for a repeat on Friday with a group from work. We were going to hit a new section of trail that some of the guys built. We left work for a lunch ride, I was already telling myself I needed to break off early to make sure I got back to work on time and not bite off more than I could chew. The pace we started with was manageable for a warmup, then we arrived at the trail head and it was on, it was a great start to the trail, good little climbs, technical decents, lots of fun. I allowed myself to get swallowed up in the fun because I looked at my timer and I was hitting 22 minutes and I was on the backside of a few large climbs to get back to work. I would get off and hoof it up some of the climbs. I wouldn't get as tired walking up the climbs.

By the time 30 minutes rolled around, I was still pretty far from work, and like clock work, my neck and shoulders started to ache, then the small of my back, but the dizzy spells didn't seem to come like normal. I had been praying whenever the weakness would come over me for God to give me the strength I needed to get back to work because I knew I couldn't do it on my own. The guys at work were great, they waited for me at forks in the trail and at the tops of climbs, but I would press them ahead, saying that I was fine and they could move on and don't let me hold them up.

We made it out to the end of the trail and started riding the road back, we are at 40 minutes now. I am cooked, limping back to work. I prayed to God that I would make it back with enough time to stop by Subway before heading back. Then God sent an angel in the form of a coworker, Chris, who came back to ride the rest of the way back to work. Looking at the time, I asked Chris if he would run to Subway for me, so I could get back. (It would probably take the same amount of time.) It took every bit of energy to get back to work. I made it and finished out the day.

On Saturday, I had a great meeting with some of the men from the church where Danielle and I are members. Afterward, I met up with my friend, neighbor, and coworker, Tony and a friend of his for a ride at Lake Crabtree. This time we rode the C connector to the Lake trail to Loop 1. We stopped at the jumps again, played around, then I had to call it a day. It was getting close to the time when my carriage was going to turn into a pumpkin. I was pressing 30 minutes for my ride time, so I bolted back to the car and started to feel the onset of weakness overtaking me. When I arrived at the Corolla, I leaned the bike on the car and plopped down in the driver seat and just listened to music for 20 minutes. I put the bike on the roof rack and had a moment of weakness midway where I had to drop the fork legs on the roof of the car to situate myself and reattempt. The next attempt was good. I sat back down to rest for a few more minutes. Then went and talked to a few guys at my old shop.

When I got home, I packed up my fishing gear and dragged Danielle along with me to go fishing at the West Point on the Eno River in Durham.

We could see 4-5 lbs carp in the river, but they weren't biting. We are going to go above the damn where there are bass and crappie next time.

Sunday was a good day, after church, we came back and made some BBQ...some NC BBQ, I made a homemade rub for it along with a homemade vinegar sauce that was a little hotter than in the past after adding a tablespoon of Habenero Sauce. Oh the fire, it burns! with spicy goodness that is.

While that was cooking I decided to try my hand at breading fish for the first time as well as making hushpuppies for the first time. I had to use store bought fish...grrr! All in all, it came out great.

Sunday evening, we went to the Historic Occoneechee Speedway Trail for a short hike. It is one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I have been in a while. I was planning on stopping by after work today for some quiet time to commune with God. I decided against it, to go home and here about Danielle's interesting day with a neighbor to the club...maybe tomorrow?

Shameless Animal Videos

2010-04-17T22:53:00.001-04:00

Our dogs are so adorable. Don't believe me? Check them out!

Whoa, sorry! Big update!

2010-04-10T09:11:00.010-04:00

I apologize for not blogging at all these past 3 weeks. I have a great excuse, though. What, no excuses, you say? No! Let me explain...please! :)

Okay, so I found employment! Whew. After being unemployed for 5 weeks, you can imagine how relieved both Rob and I were when this job came through! And it's not just any job, it was my "dream job"! I interviewed for this job back in early March and then didn't hear anything back for 3 weeks. I was so sad, thinking, "oh well, I guess that's not the job God had in His plan for me. God will provide something, just not this one..."

But the call finally came through one day, on the last day of March. 2 days later, I'm eating lunch with my future bosses, and they extend an offer of employment to me. 1 day later, I accept it. And 1 more day after that, I find out my job title - Interim Club Manager at Eno Valley Swim and Racquet Club! Hooray! I'm so excited to be working for such a great Club in Durham!

So I've been busy these past 2 weeks, to say the least! As Club Manager, I am in charge of "getting things done". Is that specific enough for you? :) Okay, how about this: I'm in charge of ensuring that daily Club operations run smoothly, addressing anything from broken tennis nets to keeping the Shack snack bar fully stocked. That, and manage a summer staff of about 15 kids with the help of 2 great Assistant Managers.

Yesterday my project was to find a solution and fix this:

Not pretty, huh? Now I don't know much about tennis, as I am mostly a swim girl, with the majority of my working experience coming from the pool deck. At first I thought, "uh oh, looks like this net is done. I better start researching how much a new net will cost and bring the proposal to the next board meeting." While that thought isn't a bad plan in itself, it still doesn't fix the problem for those who want to continue playing on that court. I would've never thought of this on my own, so I'm thankful for the great recommendation from the tennis chair on the Club's Board! He suggested this temporary fix:

Fishing line can be used for more than just fishin'...who knew? :)

I used 80 pound line found at Wal-Mart for a whole $3.75. Now people can continue to play on the court until a better solution can be found.

As I'm sure you can tell by my language and attitude on this blog, I am LOVING my new job!

Enough about me. Rob is doing okay, just hanging in there and trying to stay positive like he always does. He had his fistula maintenance appointment, a "tune-up" of sorts on his veins in his access arm last week. And he saw his fistula surgeon yesterday who explained the mystery behind the "new access sticking point" and his "old one". But first I have to update you on that...

The old one was having major problems about 3 weeks ago. He kept clotting and couldn't get good sticks in to start his dialysis treatments. So they sent him to Vascular Access Center here in Durham. What should have been a quick in-and-out visit ended up being a 5.5 hour "ok, I'm really worried, what's going on in there?" kind of visit. I even had to call Rob's boss and explain that Rob probably wouldn't be back at work that day. Rob came out of the "tune-up" room and wolfed down the sandwich they had provided him. Then the vascular surgeon came out and described/explained what he saw on the fistulagram.

Here's an image from Rob's fistulagram:

See that little, light gray vein in the bottom of that picture...well, that is where Rob has been sticking himself for the past 2 years in dialysis. See how at the top of that light gray vein, there is a little "bulge"? Well, that's where it clotted off, a long, long time ago. But Rob kept sticking there and doing dialysis, with no problems for 2 years.

See that dark gray vein, the one that makes an almost 90 degree right hand turn? Well, that is what the vascular surgeon decided to call Rob's "new access point". He cleaned it out, using instruments that vascular surgeons use, whatever they are called...Rob said he could feel them moving up his arm and poking around near his shoulder. ACK! UGH! Seriously? Ouch. The vascular surgeon was amazed that Rob's veins essentially "fixed themselves" after the clotting happened on the original route. So now Rob has 2 access points. The "old" one and the "new" one.

Here's a hand-drawn pic of Rob's fistula. As you can see, before attending Duke Medical School, this doc went to art school where I think he was given a B+ in Intro to Medical Drawing:

"Ahhh, now I see!" you are probably saying to yourself right now. The place with the dots is where Rob has been sticking himself for 2 years. The "new" location is to the right of that old one. So they stitched up Rob's buttonholes and Rob's been going through the painful process of making new buttonholes on the new access point. Last night was the second time that Rob was able to stick himself on his new access point. So hopefully soon, he'll be able to use blunt needles and it won't hurt as much as using sharps.

So yesterday's visit to the original surgeon who created Rob's fistula, explained a lot. He said that where Rob had been sticking himself for 2 years was originally his "alternate" route, and the "new spot" that was uncovered by the Vascular Access Center wasn't really a new spot at all - it was his original spot, where Rob should have been sticking himself all along. Oops.

One more picture of Rob's new access point:

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully it won't be another 4 weeks before you are updated again.

Friends x Friend + Mr. Men Picture / Elmo's + dogs + PKD = new friend indeed!

2010-03-15T11:35:00.013-04:00

About 3 weeks ago, we went for a walk with the dogs and our 2 friends, David and Kim. David is our friend who also happens to be a dialysis patient with PKD at Rob's clinic, and Kim is our friend through our swimming days of past, but who still graciously invites us to her fun parties and impromptu quarry swims.

Interestingly enough, we first met David at one of Kim's parties, back in December 2006. I believe it was the annual Cookie Exchange party, which is the best excuse I can think of to not eat anything all day, and then consume my entire daily caloric intake on cookies, brownies and other yummy treats. Thankfully, this party is only once a year! Anyway, I remember chatting with David at that party and finding out that he met Kim while they were both students at Duke University. I don't remember much more than that. Rob was still sort of "healthy" at that point, well, healthy compared to his lack of health now... and so was David.

At that first meeting, we had no idea that a little over 2 years later, we'd be reconnected and forming a friendship of our own. But this time, our connection wouldn't be through Kim, but that of an ugly genetic disease known as Polycystic Kidney Disease and the need for dialysis.

And how did this reconnection happen, you ask?

Through Facebook, of course!

And not just through a boring "Facebook friend recommendation" either. No, it was because of a Wall Picture post, the kind that were really popular back in early 2009. Everyone was doing them. You know, the one where you "tag" your friends on a picture of Simpsons characters, and then your friends see that tag, and they hopefully post a funny comment at the bottom. Then your friend right clicks and copies that pic to his/her profile and does the same thing with their friends... Well, in our case, it wasn't a picture of Simpsons characters. It was this one:

Little Miss and Mr. Men characters! So when I started tagging all of my friends on there, including Rob and Kim. I tagged Rob as "The One That's Always Hungry" in the bottom right hand corner. Which I guess is where one would tag their friend who is either fat or pregnant. Rob is neither fat, nor pregnant (although we did joke that he had "twins" after they removed his kidneys last summer), so I figured I would comment on my own picture with a clarification for the Rob tag.

My comment said: "I only tagged Rob as the One Who's Always Hungry because of his grossly enlarged PKD kidneys that make his tummy stick out"

Then Kim responded to her "tag" on this pic. I don't remember what she said, but it's irrelevant. What is relevant is that David was on Facebook that day, and he happened to be on Kim's facebook page, writing something on her Wall. But he happened to see the picture I posted because on Kim's page, it said, "Kim was tagged in a picture". So David, being bored and/or curious, clicked on it, and read the comments. He saw my comment about Rob's grossly enlarged kidneys, and then he thought, hmmm, maybe I should "friend" this girl...

And that's how it began. A few emails back and forth, and then we had dinner at Elmo's. Mmmm...Elmo's. Not the best place to eat for a dialysis patient, but then again, where is a good place to eat while limiting phosphorous, sodium and potassium?

I haven't been to Elmo's since that first "meet and greet" with David in early March 2009. I want to go again. I can't resist their homemade Nanner Puddin'!

So, I never said this out loud, but I will here. Thank you Kim, for being my friend. Thank you for choosing to swim with DAMA when I was coaching, so I could meet you.

So, back to the original picture I posted at the beginning of this blog. We walked for about an hour all around Durham Academy. We were yelled at by some old man because I allowed our bluetick coonhound to go pee-pee on the grass inside the track. Yes, pee-pee. I smiled and said, okay, sorry. David's dog, Herman, unsuccessfully tried eating all of the other dogs for a pre-dinner snack. Then we got caught in some mud off a trail and had to turn back around. But not before Herman thought it would be nice to take a mud bath. Yay. But we had a great time walking and talking and laughing like friends do.

I'll end this post with a super smiley, cute pic of just David, Rob and I at the end of the walk. Yes, we look all smiley and happy, but inside, 2 of us are silently crying out in pain and misery, "Please, give me a kidney now!" And the other one...me...is crying out for a kidney for my husband and my friend. I may have perfectly healthy kidneys, but I know what it's like to have your life disrupted by kidney disease.

Life has been moving along, slowly...kind of like at "half-speed" when you set your DVD to play a certain scene really slow.

I'm waiting, patiently as I can, to be able to press the "resume play" button on our life.

Update

2010-03-02T11:21:00.004-05:00

We haven't blogged in quite a while. Sorry about that. We've just been chugging along living our daily life. Work, eat, sleep, repeat.

We are still excited about jogging in the UNC Kidney Kare 5K on March 20!

I love this graphic! But sadly, Rob and I will be nowhere near that anthropomorphic Carolina blue 5K kidney champion who is breaking the tape in 1st place! And I don't think we'll look anything like the 3 other anthropomorphized kidneys chasing after him. Well, maybe the sweaty part. But definitely not in the stride category. Those kidneys' stride looks to be akin to everyone in the men's 200m race in Beijing.

Um yeah, that's not our kind of stride!

We will, however, be yelling the same thing when we do finish - "Wooo Hoooooo!"

I'm not sure if we totally recruited our dialysis friend to jog it along with us. He thinks that he'll slow us down, even though we've told him that our finish time doesn't matter. I want us to finish together, which means we'll jog when we all can, and we'll all stop to walk when 1 of us can't continue jogging anymore.

We did go for a walk with our dogs about a week ago. We had the intention of jogging and walking when necessary, but because we were sore and tired from our run the day before, we decided just an easy stroll with the dogs sounded better.

So while we aren't "training" for this 5K event, I am still excited to participate in it! Rob and I should be going for a little pseudo-training jog on Thursday evening. We just received our new running shoes in the mail today, so I'll be wearing them around the house and everywhere I go for the next day or 2, to break them in.

Well that's all for now. 18 days until the UNC Kidney Kare 5K run!

UNC Kidney Kare 5K Runners

2010-02-13T20:37:00.002-05:00

Rob and I decided to sign up to run in the upcoming UNC Kidney Center Kidney Kare 5K run. Click here for the link.

We just signed up today. The race is March 20, exactly 5 weeks away. That's not a lot of time to get aerobically ready to complete a 5K race, but that's okay. I just want to finish the 5K with as little walking as possible. When I run, I'm sure I'll be jogging at a very slow pace (at least, slow for me), and I'm okay with that. If it turns into a jog for a few minutes, walk for 1 minute, jog again, then walk...repeating until I cross the finish line, that's great and I will count that as a successful finish!

There is a "Dialysis Patient" category for the run which is really cool. Also, a category for people who have already had a kidney transplant. I wonder if we can get our friend who dialyzes with Rob to consider doing it with us? (hint, hint! Not naming any names...) And maybe we can ask our new friend who we just met through Facebook who was successfully transplanted back in 2007. Hmmm, this could be fun!

So...we've got 35 days to "get in shape" before the "race". I put both of those in quotes because they mean something totally different to us than they used to.

A handful of years ago, a friend and I were discussing big life kind of questions, and I was asked, "Danielle, what do you think the meaning of life is?"

I answered, "To achieve success in every thing I do, especially in bike racing and swimming." Of course my answer wasn't just that, as it included "get married and buy a house with a white picket fence and pop out 2 or 3 kids" and to "teach and lead others to live happy, successful lives". Which is kind of funny, because at the time, I thought I was happy and on my way to a successful life, when in reality, I was far from it!

Exercise and competition drove me daily. I dreamed about it and thought constantly about exercise and being the best that I could be. A day without exercise (aside from structured rest days) was horrible and I would beat myself up in my head, telling myself I was lazy and I'd amount to nothing if I stayed in that pattern. When I would see the results of good training, grabbing a podium finish at a race, it made me prideful.

Now, "get in shape" to me, means treating my body in a way that is healthy; choosing to eat healthy foods, eating snacks and desserts in moderation, and exercising moderately to achieve a healthy amount of aerobic fitness. But as of yesterday, I was not treating my body in a way that is healthy. I've fallen into a rut of no exercise, eat what you want, when you want. And my excuse for this 2.5 year rut is, well, that's just not who I am anymore. Who I used to be was Danielle: the bike racer and swim coach. Those were the 2 things that mattered the most to me. Who am I now? I'll take a stab at my new definition. Danielle: a born again Christian who loves God, a devoted wife to Rob, who seeks to serve others before serving myself (falling into selfishness). I'm not a bike racer by any stretch of the imagination anymore. And I'm not a swim coach anymore...well, not like I used to be.

So why am I wanting to "get in shape" and complete this 5K? Is it to raise kidney awareness? Not really. Is it so that I can lose a little bit of weight and hopefully fit back into my closet full of size 10 pants? No, although that would be nice (chuckle, chuckle). Is it an attempt to add a part of my old life into my new life, while giving glory to God for that addition? No, I don't think so.

I still don't have a definite answer for why I want to "get in shape" and complete this 5K...but I'm thinking it has something to do with my new meaning of life, the part about serving others. It takes a certain amount of energy and physical fitness to serve others with joy in my heart. Overweight and sluggish is how I've been feeling after doing anything remotely active with children or cleaning my house. I don't know about you, but overweight and sluggish isn't a joyful feeling. But is it really all about "feelings"? No. Is it all about what I do, and why I do it? I think yes, I may be getting close...

I'm sorry I'm rambling on like this! But think about this:

Have you ever really thought about the things you fill your life with, the things you do...and WHY you do them? I'm not talking about the basic life necessities like making dinner or brushing your teeth, duh, we all know why we do those things...but why do I choose to ride my bike? Why do I read my Bible? Why do I jog or go for a hike with my dogs? Why do I pray? Go for a swim? Take a nap? Waste a couple hours on the internet? Help my neighbor do something they can't do by themselves? Talk with a close friend, listen to their problems, pray for them?

Well, my brain is done! I've rambled on for too long!

But I sure am excited about this Kidney Kare run!

First Day of the Second Month Randomness

2010-02-01T21:46:00.005-05:00

Rob is at dialysis right now and I'm praying that he gets a good night's rest while dialyzing. He usually does sleep pretty good while at the nocturnal clinic, but sometimes he doesn't for whatever reason. He just switched jobs within his company, so now he is working a Mon-Fri 9 to 6pm cubicle job. I'm a little scared that Rob will get too sleepy to perform his work duties to the best of his ability on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, after he comes off from his treatment. For the past 8 months or so, since he's been on nocturnal, he usually had to go into work at noon or 1pm on Tuesday and Thursdays, giving him extra time to snooze after coming home from treatment. But as it stands for tomorrow morning, he will likely get home at 6:15-6:30am, and will need to be in the shower, getting ready for work starting at 7am. That doesn't give him a lot of time to take an after dialysis nap. I will just pray about it and give this worry over to God, because there's no point in me stressing out over it!

For dinner tonight, I made Rob's new favorite recipe, which can be found on the back of a Stove Top cornbread stuffing mix box. They call it "Easy Chicken Bake" which sounds so generic! So I decided to change the name of it and call it "Totally Yummy Chicken Casserole"!

To finish my blog post tonight, I will write about one thing from my random brainstorm flow chart that I did last week. See pic here, if you don't know what I'm talking about.

I guess I'll start by telling you about how I got to the word "filter" from my starting word of kidney. For those of you reading this who are very familiar with dialysis, you don't need me to explain, I'm certain of that. But for those who are not very familiar with dialysis, this should help!

You know the picture you see when you first see our blog? The one where Rob is sleeping and there's a super-cute little beagle on his lap? That cylindrical tube thing labeled NxStage is the filter. You'll see one tube coming out of the top of the filter that is dark red from the continuous pumping of Rob's blood, and another tube that looks clear/empty, but it is not. That one is filled with a continuous pumping flow of a liquid called "dialysate" (die-al-uh-sate). So, the filter acts as an artificial kidney, because Rob's kidneys don't work like they should. At least they didn't when that picture was taken. (it was taken in November 2008)

But now, Rob doesn't even have any kidneys in his body at all, as they were removed last summer. A lot of people are totally shocked when we tell them that Rob doesn't have kidneys. They say things like, "Umm, don't you NEED kidneys?" or "Seriously, why aren't you dead?" Yes, some people are trying to be funny when they ask these questions, but others, nope, they are dead serious. So we take this to be a great time to educate others about dialysis and how it works. And there's no way to describe it without mentioning the word "filter". Hence, my flow from the word Kidney to Filter, in my brainstorm flow chart.

That tube labeled NxStage has probably a thousand paper-thin semi-permeable membranes that Rob's blood passes next to. The dialysate acts as a magnet of sorts, and pulls off the yucky stuff in Rob's blood, by way of osmosis. That yucky stuff goes into the waste line and is disposed of, and the cleaner blood is returned to Rob's body. This process happens numerous times during a single dialysis treatment. Each time the blood passes by the membranes inside the NxStage filter, it gets cleaner and cleaner. So if you've ever wondered what your own healthy kidneys did all day, besides producing urine, now you know! They filter out all the "yucky" stuff that our body doesn't need, mainly extra salts and minerals and pharmaceuticals.

That's all for now! I hope everyone reading this has a great day/night!

Snow Fun Report

2010-01-30T18:43:00.002-05:00

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

2010-01-26T20:01:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-20T16:51:00.004-05:00

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!

2010-01-19T10:19:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-14T23:40:00.003-05:00

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!

2010-01-13T23:30:00.004-05:00

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!

2010-01-02T22:04:00.002-05:00

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

2010-01-02T14:58:00.005-05:00

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

2010-01-02T12:44:00.011-05:00

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.

The man who knows no strangers.

2009-12-27T23:37:00.005-05:00

A few weeks back, I had an interesting conversation with a man who came into the shop where I work. I didn't think anything of it at the time, I was cordial to him, like I would be to any customer. He was buying shoes and pedals for his son. As we talked, I spoke of a new pair of shoes I had just purchased for my wife. I was excited for my wife because she needed a new pair of shoes so badly. The shoes we replaced were a $240 pair of Italian Cycling shoes that had grown too small. Her feet have continued to grow into adulthood, they aren't monstrous and manly by any stretch, they are still beautiful and feminine, just a little longer than most women.

This man and I spoke of racing and I mentioned Danielle's accolades and the fact that I was semi-retired from racing myself. You could say I was fishing for my customer to pry as to why I am semi-retired, which he did. I told him I was waiting for a kidney transplant and that I currently do not have any kidneys. (I find it amazing that God made us able to live without vital organs, so I like to share about it.) He and I spoke in more detail about my health issues and he went on his way.

A week or two went by when my Pastor called me and asked if I knew a particular man. He gave me his name and it sounded familiar. I looked him up in our database to verify and told my pastor that the man he asked about and my customer were one in the same. It turned out, he was the editor for a Baptist Newspaper and had written about our interaction, but in vague terms to keep me anonymous. (I would guess.) My Pastor had assumed it was me, how many people without kidneys work in a bike shop anywhere, much less North Carolina?

I thought it was neat that someone would be interested enough in my story to write about our interaction. My Pastor sent a copy of the story to me and I left it at that.

A few days later, my new friend came into the shop with some interesting news. A Reverend from a small church near Wilmington, NC had called the newspaper office and offered to donate a kidney to me, provided we were a match. I responded in a similar manner that I have whenever I have had someone offered in the past, sheer gratitude, near tears, and do what I can to stay standing. I knew it was a long shot, but I felt very blessed. Here was a man who I have never met, offering a kidney to help me live a better, more fulfilling life. My new friend passed along this man's information and left his contact info so he could keep tabs on the story.

I called the Reverend a few days later. We were unsure of his blood type at first. I need type O blood, positive or negative and preferably up to 6 genetic markers. I have had some friends match with upwards of 4 genetic markers, but for one reason or another, it wasn't in God's plan for us to match up. Because of previous disappointment, I did not put a lot of hope in this working out. While I was still grateful, he turned out to have B+ blood.

He said he would bring it to his congregation, if it is to be, then God will make it so. All the while, I plan on keeping faithful to God and if a kidney is in God's plan for me, I will praise him, and I will continue to praise him even if it is not.

Banana Split for dinner

2009-12-27T23:26:00.006-05:00

So, the other night, Danielle asked me if I wanted dinner. I said OK, and she whipped off into the kitchen. I heard a flurry of activity, plates clicking against silverware, a cutting board, a spoon in a jar, and then a poof, from what sounded like it came from a can of whipped cream.

Then, I was presented with a beautifully constructed banana split. I devoured it all the while considering why we were eating banana splits for dinner. Danielle had been playing with Play-Doh "Ice Cream Shop" at work and after making a banana and a cherry, she developed a craving for a homemade banana split! Oh well, it was yummy, as you can see.

Not that I needed a reminder, but God is AMAZING!

2009-12-10T19:11:00.003-05:00

8 days ago, Rob and I received a really cool link in our inbox:

Click here for an article written about Rob

After reading the 2nd sentence of the article, I blushed a little and felt a little embarrassed. Why? Well, I'm not an Expert class racer anymore. I'm far, far, far away from truthfully being labeled an expert in cross country for USA Cycling. In fact, I've even forgotten my old race registration number, so even if I wanted (and I don't, let me be clear on that) to go back in the USA Cycling archives to momentarily puff myself up with how good of a racer I used to be, I can't. The extra 30 pounds I carry around all day is a good reminder of how far I've come since emerging from the darkness of my past - a life lived only for myself, for self-glorification, for others to pat me on the back and to overhear people saying nice things about me. I don't care about those things anymore.

Well, what do I care about now? Whew, that's a huge question, and I'd love to tell you readers, all 5 of them (ha ha ha!), all the specifics and tiny details about the love in my heart that changed my life, but...that'd be getting way off topic here for this post, so I'll leave you hanging for now about that....

Back to the article about Rob. You'll see that the author of the article writes about his encounter with Rob at work (Performance Bike in Cary, NC). After we read the article, Rob immediately recalled the man who wrote it, and said, "I meet lots of customers all day, and some, through the course of our conversation, do find out that I have no kidneys and I'm waiting on a transplant. But I never thought I'd deal with a customer who would then turn around and write an article about me, especially one that points to God as being the true 'Transplant Coordinator'".

The article left me still feeling a little embarrassed about the $300 shoe part...but, to be fair, I should note that the shoes didn't cost us $300, that's the retail cost. We get the cheap "pro deal" which is one of the perks of working in the bicycle industry.

Enough about Expert class, fancy shoes and me being embarrassed. What did the article accomplish for me? Easy answer here: It led me in a new direction towards my prayers for Rob's kidneys. I know prayers are a personal thing, and perhaps I shouldn't be saying this, but I'm going to be honest with you all. My prayer life still falls way short of what it should be and what I want it to be. Sometimes I wait until bedtime to pray and in the middle of praying, I fall asleep, not able to finish it. And other times, I pray silently to myself in the daytime, and then I lose focus (hello ADD?) and start pondering about something rather dumb and boring. Of course, I do have periods of time where my prayer life is feeling super groovy and deeply connected to God, but perhaps this wishy-washiness (wow, that's a real word!) is just something that all newer Christians go through?

As I continue to grow in my faith, so will my prayer life. God wants us to pray, to be in daily conversation with Him, and I admit, I struggle in this area. I typically pray the same kind of prayer every time I pray - a prayer of thanksgiving, thanking Him for my salvation, our jobs, the roof over our heads and the food in our fridge. Then I pray for a family member or a friend who specifically needs my prayer. I tend to finish up each prayer by asking for strength to persevere through the tough spots in the life we live in this world, and to help me live in a way that brings glory and honor to God. You would think that I would be praying specifically for a successful kidney transplant every chance I get, right? Not exactly...I don't know why, but I'd guess that Rob's kidneys (or lack thereof) make it into my prayers about 25% of the time. I know, crazy, huh?

Of course I've read Matthew 7:7 - 8:

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Most people interpret this to mean that we can pray for the specific things we want, and because God is our Father and He loves us, He will respond by answering our prayer. It just feels weird because I know that everything I have is a direct gift from God. Therefore, I shall not want anything, because wanting things usually goes hand-in-hand with selfishness and vanity. I should be (and I am) content with my current possessions. To give you an example, I am content with my iPod, it works well holding about 750 songs when fully loaded. But my iTunes library is currently at 1500 songs, which means I have to manually select which songs/artists/playlists to sync to my iPod, which can be a pain in the tushie sometimes. Of course I've thought, "Gee, wouldn't it be nice to have a newer, more colorful, 16 Gig, video-capable iPod that automatically shuffles your songs when you literally shake it? Sure would, but we can't afford it." So, of course I'm not going to pray to God and ask Him to give us a fancy new iPod! But I think you're understanding where I'm going with this.

While there's pretty much no comparison between a new iPod and a new kidney, I still feel like they are sort of equal when it comes to prayer. So when I pray for Rob's health, I ask something along the lines of "God, please encourage Rob today, to stay strong in his faith, despite his current health and his dependency on dialysis to stay alive. Please help him watch his fluid intake and guard his heart from the strain of water weight gain between treatments. And please God, I know you know, in your master plan, you've got it all worked out, you know who and where Rob's new kidney is going to come from, and Lord, I know I cannot expedite the date of Rob's transplant, but God, please help strengthen us both, as we wait for this transplant, however long it takes, but...please let us find ways to continue to give you the glory for the journey that Polycystic Kidney Disease has taken us on."

I feel like there's no point in just praying something that gets right to the point, like "God, Rob needs a kidney, please give him one. Thanks. Amen." That sounds like something a 6 year old would pray. Even though Matt 7:7-8 is pretty clear, it's not like we're going to open our front door one morning to see a wicker basket containing a healthy, pink kidney and a note that says, "Love, God." While that sounds like a slightly funny, slightly possible Scrubs episode plot, we know it won't happen that way. God puts people together and makes circumstances happen for a reason. I guess I'd rather pray for the current situation than to pray for what we hope for in the future, because I know I can't change the future. God is in control. God makes things happen.

So the article made me think about the family of the person who will eventually donate a kidney to Rob. Rob will either receive a kidney from someone recently deceased, or he'll have a kidney donated by a living donor. So it made me think, if Rob gets a deceased donor kidney, that person who just died, will most likely have family and friends and co-workers and neighbors who all knew that person and who will be grieving at their funeral, and probably for weeks afterwards. But do those grieving family and friends know that through their tears of pain and loss, another family will be celebrating and praising God for a miracle? The article ended with the author's statement that he prayed for the donor, and then it dawned on me - I haven't prayed for the donor's family!

So later that night, I prayed for the donor, whether he/she will be living or deceased, and for the donor's family. And you know what? It felt amazing to do so! It didn't feel selfish at all! And it didn't feel weird, praying for a stranger, someone I don't know. I can and do pray for strangers sometimes, like the man I drove by about 3 days ago in the Arby's parking lot; his heart had stopped, and EMT personnel were performing CPR on him. I witnessed the scene for probably 3 seconds, but I prayed out loud in the truck for him, and I prayed for his family for at least a full minute. Tears welled up in my eyes as I did so, and at the time, I didn't know why. Last night, I found out why. I was reading up on WRAL.com on the local news when I saw the top headline was about a fatal accident at a railroad crossing that I'm very acquainted with. It's about 2 miles from our house, and I drive across this specific crossing at least 4 times a week. It was completely accidental, but an SUV holding a mother and her two sons, aged 6 and 9, were stuck on the tracks when the crossing arms came down (because of traffic congestion) and an Amtrack heading for Charlotte plowed into them. The impact injured the mother and killed the 2 boys. I started crying when I read this and I thought, God has a plan, He has his reasons for taking these boys so early, we may not understand it right now, but we will understand it later. God works even in loss, even in midst of disease, disappointment, and heartbreak. Just like when I was robbed and kidnapped in Houston in 2003, I didn't understand why that had to happen then. But years later, now, I do understand why God allowed me to go through that.

When I was reading the comments section below the article about the fatal car-train wreck, I found my answer to why I was crying when I prayed for the guy whose heart had stopped. I wasn't crying tears of loss or grief, because they are strangers, but tears of a sort of joy because God made himself known by this incident. And it makes me happy to see God working in other people's lives, because I know the joy personally of God working in mine.
Everything works for the good of those who love God, who have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). But you wouldn't have known it by reading the comments that some people were posting about this fatal accident. People were blaming the mother for being "so stupid" for stopping on the train tracks, saying that she'll live the rest of her life feeling sorry for her action which caused her 2 boys to die. When I read these comments, I became a little angry at the people behind those mean comments. Thankfully, my anger was short-lived, and my heart felt full suddenly. My heart was telling me, God did this, yes, it was accidental on the mother's part, but the mother isn't to blame. We shouldn't be blaming anyone after a tragedy like this. My apologies to any atheists who may be reading this, but evidence of God is all around us. He does exist and He is wonderfully orchestrating the lives of everyone on earth. Including you, and the person next to you. Have you thanked God for that lately? Maybe you've never even thought about that?

I certainly feel more optimistic than I had been feeling weeks prior to all this happening. I guess I needed a gentle reminder that God is in control, that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and GOOD. Take a deep breath and say it with me: God is GOOD! :)

Well, to finish my already long blog post, you must click on another article, which further proves God's awesomeness, like totally dude!

Here is a follow-up article from the same guy who wrote the 1st article.

Umm, wow. I am speechless. It may be a long shot, but like the article is titled, What are the odds? Coincidence? No, there's no such thing. Just the way life works out? Perhaps. God's answer to my prayer, the article author's prayer, and the prayer of the guy who wanted to donate his kidney? I think the answer just might be yes to that question. But we'll see. Of course I'll keep you all posted, all 5 of you (ha ha ha!)

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

2009-11-26T22:03:00.007-05:00

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

2009-11-21T20:15:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-12T22:33:00.005-05:00

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

2009-11-12T21:13:00.004-05:00

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!

2009-11-08T21:07:00.001-05:00

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!

2009-11-08T19:44:00.002-05:00

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?

2009-11-07T20:28:00.000-05:00

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.