Yvonne’s Challenge

Mondays are hospital days, so that’s when I get the latest readings.  In a word, everything is great again this week.  I feel terrific, and all the numbers evidence how I feel.  AND, no more masks … freedom from the face accessory that’s been a constant companion.  I’m not complaining since I understand why they’re important.  But how nice not to be saddled with it.  I should be doing back flips with my friend Jackie. 

This week, my doc says that after next Monday I’ll be able to start coming every other week.  Great news!  On my first day back to work I won’t have to leave for a mid-day medical center visit.  So let’s hear it for April 21, friends … just six weeks and three days after surgery, I’ll be going back to work … but who’s counting?  (Note to friends at The Planet:  Y-gonne is coming B-A-C-K and will be ready to rock ‘n roll!)

I’ve worked out a schedule with the hospital that’s manageable.  Typically patients show up on Mondays at 8:00 a.m. for blood work, then wait around until 1:00 when they start seeing patients.  Hmmm … waiting around for 4-5 hours didn’t quite work for me.  They’ve accommodated my request so that I do blood work on Sundays at 6:30 a.m. and then go for a standing noon appointment on Mondays which is far better.  It’s outside the bounds of how things are done normally — remember that normal is a setting on a washing machine — and I appreciate their working with me to make it a manageable schedule.   

Beth is doing really well … we had a nice chat yesterday.  She’s amazing … last week I got a note from her, and by 10:00 a.m. she had been to Home Depot to get staples, and had gone back again to get the right ones since they’d sold her the wrong size.  (I sense a little attitude which is always healthy!)  AND by that hour, she already had recovered all her dining room chairs.  I think she stole some of my prednisone.  

She says the pain is better as long as she doesn’t overdo it.  I think we may have known each other in another life since she doesn’t understand what “overdo it” means.  My friend Susan Holton on more than a couple of occasions has said that I have two speeds — 0 and 100.  I think Beth is the same.  You go, Sista Girl!

I will be excited when I can workout again.  I can start cardio the week I return to work, but no weights until I hit three months.  With the prednisone, I don’t sleep much — I seem to wake up about 2:00 and then again at 4:15 — so I think the cardio will help.  BTW — television at that hour is pretty awful. 

Lei Lei is finally sleeping through the night.  When I go to bed, I have to be careful not to peak and see if she’s in her chair … any glimpse of possibility makes her think it may be the lucky night when she can hop into “her” real bed.  The minute the lights are on in the morning, she leaps from her chair to get a little hug.    Poor little darling … and Shaddie is so sweet and content to be in the same room with never a complaint.  As our dog walker, Scott, says, Lei Lei is definitely a diva.  I place no blame on her, I assure you.  I’m the culprit who’s given her the freedom to be a diva.  As our friend Chris Gardner says, they won the lottery when they came to “our” house. 

Tomorrow Christi Myers, ABC 13’s medical reporter, will shoot the third segment of the story with Beth and me.  This of course will be cut into a single short spot that I think it will run in May.  Remember, it’s TV.  Several people have asked … I’ll let you know when it’s scheduled to air.

I’m acutely aware of kidney tranplants, but suddenly there seems to a lot of interest in the media.  Both Beth and I have noticed the amount of coverage on TV and the newspapers.  Perhaps it’s because we’ve been home and watching more TV … I’m not certain.  My friend Becky Griffith (aka, Boo), who was my roommate at Sullins, called yesterday morning to tell me about a story on Good Morning America that showed four people who were having transplants.  It’s an amazing story:  http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4610099 

They needed kidneys, and family members didn’t match.  Through a shared donation program, the family members were paired with four who did.  I so understand the emotions they each feel.  I will never lose the overwhelming generosity and emotion of Beth’s gift.  

So that’s the latest and greatest from Club 5551.  Life is good … and I’m almost ready for prime time.  Oh what a feeling!

Love, Yvonne