Surprised to learn so many donors

One thing that has really moved me during this experience is the number of people who have called and visited who have had a family member that has had a transplant. The stories are amazing and impressive.

Some very old friends and acquaintences tell me that their own mother had dialysis for years and they truly know what it is like. Others reveal that they gave a kidney to their brother or mother. Unbelievable. It is very very humbling to know someone like Bruce K or Doug S who both gave their kidneys to family members.

I am without words when someone offers to be tested. And ask Latte man, I'm rarely without words.

One story I heard involved a transplant at Vanderbilt. A woman my age was in tears by the elevators at the Vanderbilt clinic when she ran into an old boyfriend from high school. The boyfriend always had admired her but they had never been serious. The woman told him her story: her mother was very sick from dialysis and her own kidney wasn't a match for her mother's body. On the spot the man offered to be tested and within a week he was the donor. Two years later, they began to date. Soon after, he proposed at a trip to Disney World.

Comments?

Sirens Make Me Think

Yesterday was dark and wet. Cold and icy. I kept hearing sirens on West End and Phil called a few times to tell me about all of the wrecks and a death on I-65. I told Tom H about it all and my sick feeling in my stomach that I was going to get the call for the organs.

He said in his funny pretend voice, "Maybe you should go to the scenes of the accidents and ride with the victim to the emergency room. Just to make it all easier."

It is all awful and strange and now that Christmas is so close I find myself making plans with so many friends and family that I am planning in my head that the surgery won't happen until after the holiday. After everyone opens the neat gifts that I got them! After I've gotten to go to the Thompsons' and the Watkin's - Rice's, etc etc. After MamaLott and PapaLott's house and after the Fennell gathering on Christmas day!

But You-Know-Who has His own plan. I've got to remember that. And keep my kitchen clean.

Holiday parties

Does it count when someone offers you their kidney while tipsy at a Holiday party?

The Movie Sounded Funny This Morning...spoiler alert: bathroom talk

I think I want Amy Sedaris or Drew Barrymore to play me in the film. I just cannot see Drew with diarrhea for 5 days straight. I'm not sure how that is going to play. Fortunately, I can see Ms. Sedaris making the most of the GI situation. Maybe Drew will be able to make it cute when she has to change her pants twice at the gym. Or the reaction of cute men at the gym to the smell could be a chuckle.

In the movie, Phil, I see as played by Will Smith, though Phil is not black. Cordell is black and Cordell must play Cordell (he has some experience and I must insist that he be cast as a stand in. Dallas ticket sales will pay for the movie alone) Lynnette from Despareate Housewives will be Carlyon, of course. Holly Hunter, Johnna. or Karen. Sally Field could be my mother but must be played more angelic and less neutrotic than the mother she currently plays. Latte, the whole man, the Renaissance wonder, the miracle nurse and sometimes a pain in my tush, could only be played by Steve Martin. I know through his autobiography and short stories that he is a true sensitive.

So this morning my sense of humor mislead me to believe that I could write that screenplay about my life. The long hours of dialysis, the nurses calling daily to make me describe my poop: for some reason I could just see Drew Barrymore sitting on a toilet trying to schedule a house showing for the next day. Yes, it was funny then. But 2 hours later, when I had to change clothes due to the severely strong dose of SORBITOL, my humorous feeling eroded some. When the doctor said I had to DOUBLE UP on the Sorbitol for 5 days straight....Well, I guess I am going to have to get some diapers. Fun.

There was one scene that I replay that is very funny to me. My nurses were all gathered in the little room and fussing over me. I'd broken down a little bit and cried to them for the first time. The 8 hours/day needed for the exchange was too much. The diarreah was getting old. The dietician and the social worker both were trying to talk to me to check it off their list. The dietician had to tell me all about pottasium and calcium and make me sign a sheet that she had gone over it with me. Lucky for me, no potassium flash cards this time. Meanwhile, the social worker had a big whig in the insurance department driving in to meet with me next week about Medicare. What was my schedule? she asked. Through my tears they were all trying to comfort me as well - there were 4 of them, and Toni was preparing to draw my blood. Everyone was talking at once, but when Toni leaned down with the needle and stuck my bare arm, everyone in the room leaned back and gasped, like a Disney cartoon. Really it was funny and I started laughing. I've had my blood drawn there at least 10X but I've never seen this kind of reaction.... They are all lovely women. It makes me feel good that they care that much.

Even though I think some of this is funny, I don't think this will play as a movie. Just to let you know, I had too busy a day to have to run to the potty every 10 minutes. I'm trying to finish my second dose of dialysis now, get my bloodsugar right (it is spiking) and get to a funeral visitation for someoen that I admired and was so fond of. I usually worry about crying at a funereal, but today I will be worried about another kind of leaking.

I told Phil that I had on 2 pairs of underwear to try and get me by. He said that my vagina must be in shock since I usually don't wear underwear. Shame on me for ever telling my biznes.