UNC Kidney Kare 5K Runners

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Brainstorm Flow Chart Fun

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

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



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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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



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



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



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



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

Ugh, waiting for new meds to take hold really stinks

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

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

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

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