Sorry for the delay in posting…I’ve had a slight setback that caused a bit of hiatus.  As is always the case, it was unexpected and tons of fun!  😉  Three weeks ago, I caught an upper respiratory infection, and my doctor gave me some antibiotics to get rid of it.  Well, that drug literally, and in every way possible, kicked my ass!  The day I started it, I ended up pretty much walking around a Walgreens parking lot in a daze, unable to drive and vomiting every 20 minutes!  I was very lucky that my friend Justin happened to be parked in that very same parking lot and tried to get some food in me.  Well, that didn’t work, and he ended up having to take me to the ER.  After they changed my antibiotics, they sent me home, but that one didn’t work either, and I spent the next three weeks in a nauseated, draining nightmare.  I ended up losing about 12 pounds and too weak to drive or get around much, so once again, I was admitted to the hospital so they could figure out what was going on.  They were able to stop it, and enabled me to eat solid meals again, but never had a definite answer to what it was.  They just concluded that it was a bad reaction to the meds I was taking.  I’m out now,  catching up on everything, and am working on trying to dialize off the 15 pounds of fluid they put on me while in the hospital!  Good times!  😉

In the meantime, the transplant team has put me on hold until this has been cleared up.  (It’s actually pretty much cleared, I’m just waiting for my doc to send the paperwork to the transplant team saying so).   Because I’ve been on hold, Glenn has not been able to finish his testing… Baylor protocol.  Apparently, some patients go on hold for months, so to keep Glenn’s test results as current as possible, they have to make sure I’m as current and active as possible as well.  It’s only fair to him… I’d hate for him to have to go through his testing more than once!  Ugh.  It hasn’t stopped me from finishing my legwork, though.   I was at Baylor for almost an entire day taking care of my annual appts (blood work, TB testing, sonograms of my kidneys, social worker, etc.), and during that time, I was presented with an interesting dilemma.  The social worker pointed out that I could still possibly get a call from the cadaver list while we prepare for my surgery.  I knew that, but she asked what I would do if I got the call.  Since they have been drumming into my head how much better it would be to having a living donor, and knowing I now have a matching donor, I told her I would probably turn the call down and move forward with our plans to use Glenn’s kidney.  What surprised me was that she told me not to.  She pointed out that if I was to turn it down and just go with Glenn’s kidney, I would not have a backup ready if something should go wrong (ie, it doesn’t survive the surgery, my body rejects it).  I could end up waiting another two years or more on dialysis again for another kidney.  However, if I was to use the cadaver kidney, and something went wrong, I’d have Glenn’s kidney as a backup and wouldn’t have to wait another several years to be better again.  Made sense!  I had never thought of it that way.  Plus, if the cadaver kidney ends up working as it should, it could spare Glenn the trouble of having to go through with the surgery (at least for now)!

I’m still trying to process all that in my head, because I’m not sure how to take it.  Almost the entire time I’ve been going through this process, my goal was to try to get by without having to ask for a living donor.  However, now that I have one, and I know that my chances of survival are so much better with it, it’s difficult for me now to go back to wanting the lesser option.  Don’t get me wrong, I will take whatever kidney I can get right now, so I would NOT complain if I was to get the call on the cadaver list, it’s just a bit disheartening to know that my chances of a longer life with it are not as high, and I would have to go through this entire process over again sooner than I wish.   I am not going to be selfish, though, and turn down the call.  Even though, I’m blessed that Glenn is willing to go through all this for me, I would do whatever it takes to keep him from having to suffer any more than he should have to!   I am going to continue to pray that either one will work out for me, and know that no matter which one I get, I will be in a MUCH better place than I am now!  In a way, it’s a blessing to have these types of choices to make…some people aren’t eligible for either, so I’m an extremely lucky girl.

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Things I’m thankful for today:

1.  Justin.  My angel who showed up out of nowhere and took care of me.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  🙂

2.  My supervisor, Maria for being so patient with my up and down schedule these last few weeks.

3.  My family, for literally and figuratively “holding my hair back” during these ugly weeks.

4.  Robert, my hair stylist, for chopping off that hair so that I don’t have to worry about it right now.  Now that I’m figuring out how to style it, I’m starting to like it!  🙂

5.  Chicken broth.  My latest food obsession… for being the only food I could actually keep down and for being a strange, quick and easy lunch while at work!  hahaha…