The Daily Positives

[looneytunes]

It's Saturday, the sun is shining and we are home for the weekend!   

[jbeany]

I get to sleep in my own bed tonight, with no beeping monitors and blood sucking nurses in the room, with my poor stressed out kitty snuggled by my side.  Ahhhhhh.  (Fizzy the kitty has separation anxiety since I was gone for 4 months with the transplant complications.)

[SkyDancer]

  (Fizzy the kitty has separation anxiety since I was gone for 4 months with the transplant complications.)

Awww poor Fizzy, got to love those fur babies.My cats don't like to see us leave home.The one always looks out the window and it's like she's saying "Don't leave me,take me with you".(When she was a kitten, I used to take her with me to mom's dialysis center because she was so tiny.I was told she was older than she actually was when we brought her home.)

No 4 am alarm clock for 2 whole days!!! YAY! The car has been repaired and is running great,so it's no longer a worry.The sun was shining today.

[looneytunes]

Sunday...and another stellar day in the Ozarks.  Today I'm going to clean up my car and just enjoy the sunshine! 

[jbeany]

I was worried I would gain weight while on bed rest for the week.  I didn't factor in the crappy food available at the hospital, though.  My scale says I lost 7 pounds!     I spent the time eating the stuff on the tray that I could recognize - which was usually the lettuce and the fresh fruit!

[monrein]

How did it all go jbeany?  Was it as painful as it sounded?  Did I miss an update somewhere?  Sorry for all the questions.   

[jbeany]

I've got an update post in the transplant stories section, if you want the details, Monrein.  It went good, and the donor site is like having a 3 by 9 patch of really bad sunburn on my thigh.  Uncomfortable, but not horribly painful. The new graft doesn't hurt at all, even with so many staples it looks like they installed a zipper around the outside edge.  Now, just 6 more months or so to the final surgery, so I can get a normal shape back.  With the big divot, I look like I'm having some kind of a reverse pregnancy!

Next on my list of positives for the day - I'm headed to the shower.  I get to use press and seal cling wrap on my tummy, but they have tegaderm on the donor site, so I don't even have to cover it with anything.  A real shower for the first time since last Tuesday - ahhhhhhhh. 

[monrein]

Thanks and I'll look for the detailed version too.

My positive is that I'm ever so slowly getting my house reorganized as I try to integrate some of the far too many, but very beautiful objects from my mother-in-law.  Polished silver today and puttered about.  Made a (mostly)  organic Maroccan lamb stew with lots of veggies and chick peas and spices to go over some whole wheat couscous, garnished with toasted slivered almonds, spiced raisins and hot harissa.   
Gorgeous day here but my garden tools are trapped in the garage behind "stuff" that's gotta go to charity.  Also went to help Lee buy a new tie for my niece's wedding next week in Florida.  I can't go to the wedding since I can't get travel insurance because of the blood clot 9 months ago in my arm.  Sigh.  Great day all round.

[jbeany]

 

My transplant neph said my labs were good enough that he's going to drop my prednisone!!! By the end of the month, if all the labs stay good - I'll be on 5mg a day - half what I'm taking now.  Hopefully, that means half as many cravings and much less appetite.  I want to go back to losing weight.  Having more hair on my head would be nice, too!  I'm so excited!

That and I got two new pairs of cute shoes on the clearance rack.  Not as important as my health, but positive none the less!

[monrein]

My yard is getting cleaned up, my muscles and my eyes like it and I think I might go shopping for 15 bags of sheep manure this week.  Ahhh, spring!

[billybags]

monrein, What is the sheep manure for?

[monrein]

I dig lots of composted sheep manure as well as thoroughly wetted peat moss into my garden beds every spring.  It conditions the soil and provides a nice gentle fertilizing action to the plants.  I do it a month or so before I plant out my annuals.  I used to do this twice a year but not necessary any more.  The main thing is to use composted manure, otherwise the garden will smell like a sheep farm and the fresh manure will burn the tender plants.

[paris]

I had lunch with two dear friends today at a wonderful Mediterranian restaurant.  Every single bite was incredible.  We shared with each other and  I had a warm chicken salad with greens, tomatoes, almonds, cucumbers rolled in a toasted pita with a side of Tahini dressing.  Oh my goodness!!!  I almost licked the plate when I was done!  I never finish my food, but I didn't let one bite go to waste!  My friend got the Falaffel -- so yummy.   We sat for two hours enjoying our food and our friendships.  We even tried to find a solution for world peace.  We will meet again next month to continue working on the peace thing!       Nice to have a "normal" time out with friends.  We didn't talk about health one time. For a while, I wasn't a kidney patient.   

[jbeany]

Last night, I found $40 in a book I got for a dollar at the Salvation Army a couple weeks ago.  Now there's a good deal!  (And a poor choice for a bookmark...)

[galvo]

To-day I start my new shifts 12.45pm  Mon, Wed, Fri. Back home at a reasonable hour for dinner and normal weekends. Yea!

[looneytunes]

Today was a great day, weather was sunny and mild, got the oil changed in my SUV, hubbys run going well...all is good here in the Ozarks.

[paris]

Our kidney walk was great.  It has been an emotional but fulfilling day   

[cariad]

My positive is from over a week ago, but it means a lot to me.

For my birthday in January Gwyn bought me an MP3 player because he thought it might help me get through dialysis and the hospital stay. He loaded it with songs from our CD collection, and also downloaded the David Sedaris audio book When You Are Engulfed in Flames to give me something light to take my mind off of everything. I listened to the first few chapters during dialysis and really enjoyed it. Then the transplant came about. I was staying on the research floor, but needed to spend the 24 hours after my transplant on the transplant floor. The staff said they would pack all of my belongings and move them for me. The MP3 player was lost during the transition and I was really bothered by this.

Then I remembered that we pay a lot for an AmEx gold card, and the primary benefit is extra protections against this sort of incident. We were slightly outside the insured period, but I suggested Gwyn call them, explain our unusual situation, and see if they would be willing to reimburse us. The woman who answered the phone was knocked over by Gwyn's story and told him that all he had to do was get hospital security to fax over a loss report. Before Gwyn even had a chance to contact security, a credit appeared on our AmEx statement.

Yes, American Express, with their ruthless business practices and scorched earth debt collection policies, trusted us enough to not wait for any proof of our story. The charge was barely $50, yet that gesture from AmEx undid the one regret I had about our whole hospital stay. Gwyn is getting me a new MP3, and I really want to hear the rest of that David Sedaris book. 

[jbeany]

That's awesome, cariad!  It's great when a company rises above expectations, isn't it?

(I lost an mp3 last year, too.  I got one for Christmas not long after, from a friend who didn't even know I lost the other, so I didn't spend much time wondering about the missing one.  I just found it wedged under the back seat of the car when I folded all the seats down to vacuum!  Oooops, guess I should clean the car more!)

My positives for today were all in the timing -  hitting Walmart at the same time they were rearranging, and finding a dozen things on my list in the $1.00 clearance section, saving lots of money.  And leaving the thrift store with an entire bag of books - someone with similar taste in reading material had just donated a huge stack, and I arrived just as they were putting them on the shelves. 

Although I think I should count not getting elbowed in the clearance section at Wally World as a positive, too.  Some of what was on clearance for $1 was originally 20 or 30 dollars - like shoes and boots.  It looked like a Black Friday sale in there.  Some of those crazy women were diving over each other for the bargains!  Thankfully, no one was spending any time looking at the rack of crazy patterned socks I was digging thru, looking for package stuffers for my niece, who wears the weirdest socks she can find!

[monrein]

My girlfriend and I took my 91 year old mother in law to a delicious afternoon tea at the Four Seasons hotel yesterday.  What an incredibly lovely time we all had.  Mum has been so stressed by her move to a retirement apartment and the loss of so many of her beautiful items that couldn't go with her due to space and I've been so stressed by her emotions about all this.  We laughed and teased each other about our different approaches to "stuff"... she loves and is attached to everything she's ever owned and she's been very fortunate in her life, while I view everything in life as merely being on loan, including of course my health.  She's been so lucky with her health too and still looks amazingly elegant and regal...tall and slim with a beautiful figure, mentally sharp as a tack and walks slowly with a cane but walks and gets around nonetheless.  She'd been down to have her hair done in the morning, took the bus she did and she really enjoyed this delayed Mother's Day outing with Janet and me.
We had a choice of teas from all over the world, four different kinds of finger sandwiches (my favorite was the cream cheese with roasted red pepper and grilled asparagus...rolled up and cut on a jaunty angle), scones with clotted cream, jams and lemon curd and an assortment of teeny tiny pastries and cookies.  Three hours of feeling lucky.  I've known Lyla since I was 16 and her son, my husband, is an only child so we both feel pretty lucky to have the relationship we do.
A very positive day...and especially so since last weekend together was somewhat difficult.
 

[Bajanne]

Went to pay for tickets to Puerto Rico this morning for Christopher and myself (going this afternoon).  If you book it through the Patient Advocate at the PR hospital, it only costs $157 (can go as high as $300 sometimes).  It is with an airline called Cape Air.  The other advantage is that with Cape Air, the passengers don't have to walk as far and then they go through the crew line at Immigration!

[thegrammalady]

it's the small things.  new dialysis jammies!!!!

[cariad]

Oh, jbeany - I'm glad you survived your Walmart run and got your bargains! Bargains are the best. I recently found a pair of leather La Canadienne boots on 6PM.com for $35 - original price $215 - and I cannot stop talking about it!!! My great-grandchildren will hear the tale.

My positive for the day would have to be Liot (3-year-old) spontaneously bursting into what was apparently a verbatim retelling of an advertisement for something called Pillow Pets. "Mom, they're a full size pillow and also a stuffed animal! You can take them with you when you stay at someone's house! You can choose any pet you want - crocodile, monkey, unicorn, dog, pig. They're for play time and nap time, you can even take them to sleep with you!"

He made it sound so revolutionary that I think I'm going to have to check these things out. 

[jbeany]

How can you have missed that commercial?

http://www.pillowpetstv.com/?tcode=pi8&tag=google&gclid=COfGzdfW1aECFQPyDAoduCHh2A

Or the millions of kiosks in the mall selling the fuzzy things?

Today's positive - finishing 3 procrastination projects, and got a good start on another.  I've been digging half done projects out of bins and drawers, and finishing them up.  The craft ones I can take along to the next sale, and the others are just things I've been meaning to get to and have been ignoring.  So marked off the to-do list for the day - a second coat of paint on a display rack for tote bags, finished sewing a teddy bear that's been half assembled in the bottom of a drawer for years, covered and mounted two small cork boards in the craft room to pin design ideas on, and I've gotten started on painting some twig-bodied mini sheep with paperclay heads.  The paint is drying, and now I just have to glue wool fuzz to them and they will be ready to go in the craft show, too.  I finished 3 more necklaces for the craft show while I watched TV, too.  Ahhh, the sight of empty organizer bins is soooooo beautiful!

[cariad]

Oh my, jbeany, I don't know how I've missed that ad - spectacular luck, perhaps? Thanks for the link. That commercial was hilarious and disturbing. Something about a chorus of little kids chanting gives me the creeps.

Today, we returned to a nature center to take pictures of a nest of owls. I will have to look them over and see if there is a good one to post. There were two baby owls (that are huge) and one was still sitting in the nest and the other was actually standing on a tree branch. I guess that one's close to striking off on its own. Very cool sight.