Kevin's Kidney & me

I tried to write this post last weekend... let me rephrase that... I wrote this post last weekend, in fact I wrote it over and over again but couldn't find a point at which I felt good about it. Ultimately I opted not to post it. About two weeks ago was my most recent kidney team doctor's visit and it went mostly well. Last Sunday was my ninth month since transplant and Monday was my 53rd birthday. Something about these two events orbiting each other made it feel bigger than it really was but my life wasn't living up to the grand idea of the feelings surrounding this auspicious occasion. So perhaps there was never anything that could have been written to make me happy. It's a fault I must admit to, a cross that I bear, that I am particularly hard on myself when I'm judging my actions. There are people I carry with me at all times... they live within the voice in my head and tell me that my performance is worthy of whatever it is for which I'm trying to tak...

It's happened again, another month has passed... eight months since the transplant and other than the fact that I'm gaining weight and going bald I have very little going down on the kidney front. That being said, it is approaching the time I need to start thinking about reaching out to the family who lost a loved one and whose loss led to my gain of a nicely functioning kidney. But I'm not sure what to say. That first month or two was very emotional for me. Thinking about it in more than abstract terms would always overwhelm me and could even bring tears to my eyes. These days I'm more in control of that, which is probably a good thing but, means I'm less capable of writing a full throated emotional letter and I hate feigning emotion. So I guess I need to sit with myself and really dig deep for some kind of memory of those first few weeks when this was all new and even a little frightening. These days its all routine, maybe too routine. Too routine? Is my life ...

So there are a few open ends I need to tie up from my previous two posts. In Agassiz Banana I mentioned some health concerns and an anxiety regarding the health of my kidney. I mentioned these concerns to my doctor and she explained that the results that had suddenly appeared a couple of months ago were simply the result of a different person running the tests. In other words, any two people can interpret the request for a battery of tests to mean two slightly different things, one focusing on these twelve important factors and another just doing the full array of seventeen. Once the person who ran the full array did that it added the categories into my prior test results, all of which I can see comparatively side by side on my computer screen. So to me it appeared as if some new information suddenly appeared and it sounded like warning signs. Once that mode entered into my brain I believe I became hyper aware of anything and everything that seemed unusual and I exaggerated into more...

Month seven has passed pretty much in the blink of an eye over here. It's been two months since my last doctor's visit ( and these are my sins.... am I right? All you Catholics were saying it right along with me ) and another week before I'll see her. In general I still feel pretty good, but there have been a few concerns over the last couple of months that I'm anxiously waiting to see the doctor about. Back before I went on dialysis there were some signs that I didn't recognize that suggested I was going downhill. A few of those signs are rearing their ugly heads and it makes me nervous. Mind you... these same signs could be almost anything else including coincidence, but my last few test results have had some interesting results that previously were blank and these results literally describe the physical results of what my disease actual does to my kidneys. Now... I still have my two kidneys given to me by my makers and they function at some small percentage a...

Well, six months post transplant and nothing transplant related to report. And the opportunities to get out in the world and have some post transplant fun has yet to begin. A major milestone and life is about as boring as it can be... who would want anything more from a life post transplant? I am officially done with two of my meds, so there's something. So I could stop here and it would be the shortest, most boring post into this journal to date. Or I could tell you a little story, would you like that?      You would?     Well okay then... a story... mostly true... but probably exaggerated for effect. A story about a guy, let's call him Bil. A story that meanders in and out of a single plot line but somehow all seems connected. Shall we begin? Okay then, I give you a story about a guy named Bil and his aching tooth. Told in first person narrative of course. I was watching a video this week describing the timeline in the Marvel Cinematic Universe lead...

So month five came and passed this week pretty much without a hitch. I had my monthly doctor's visit on Wednesday and everything looks good. Actually, I would typically continue bi-weekly blood draws until month six and continue monthly doctor visits as well. But things looked so good that my doctor put me on the three week blood draw schedule and told me to skip next month's doctor visit and we'll start the bi-monthly visits a bit early. So really good news. Meanwhile I've gained six Lbs since last month, which I fully attribute to the combination of a regular increase of slices of chocolate cream pie and Pepperidge Farm Lexington Cookies and a total lack of exercise. I'm truly disappointed over the exercise thing because when I first started to feel strong following the transplant I wanted to work out, but the doctors wouldn't let me. And by the time I was able to exercise I was back to work and if you've read my previous post in this journal then you ...

I write a couple of blogs. I hate calling them that... it's just a dumb word... blaaaawwwwgggguhh. I prefer to think of them as... journals or... short stories based on true events in my life or... perhaps therapy. Whatever. I currently maintain two of these journals. This one dedicated to the recovery of my kidney transplant and hopefully the goals I achieve post transplant. The other is about myriad topics that I want to talk about with no particular theme in mind. I recently started writing a post for this blog (uhg), but it quickly turned into an entry more appropriate for the other . So I'm back now to attempt to get the Kevin's Kidney version of the same post written here with less emphasis on the theme that was prevalent in that post. Begin: I've had ten years of health issues, not all related to my kidney disease but culminating in my transplant in October. For years I have dreamed of how I'm going to do things differently if and when I get beyond th...