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Yay vacation! 9 whole glorious days of not working! And 4 of them will be in Arizona with my friends! I’m ecstatic right now. Practically bouncing off the walls waiting for the dryer to be done so I can throw my clothes in the suitcase and we can be off!
I’ve been looking forward to this long break for a long time. I need time to de-stress, relax, and enjoy life again. This time of year always gets me down, for some reason. It’s like I look at my life and it’s not where I want it to be. But I have no idea how to make it get there. I’m hoping this coming week will give me an opportunity to figure out what I want, as well as how to make that happen. And if it doesn’t, then I hope I figure out how to just be happy where I am. I guess we’ll see.
Jas hasn’t found a replacement bartending job yet, so money is really tight right now (especially after Christmas). I sold my Wii to one of my bosses which made my life a little less stressful. I love the Wii, but I wasn’t playing it very often. My living room is not big enough for the moving around that Wii playing requires, and I got tired of smacking my hand on the couch every time I went Wii bowling. I thought after selling it that I’d have seller’s remorse, but that hasn’t happened at all. I’m just so glad I can afford gas to get to Arizona this weekend. I was a little concerned that we’d have to stay home for New Year’s because we had no money, but this totally helped me out. New Year’s is my second favorite holiday (right behind the 4th of July) and I’d hate to miss being with my friends for it. Every year we get together and drink and play cards all night long. Of course, we used to just call that Saturday Night, but since Tony and Kerry moved away, it’s a little more of an occasion now. Jas has already packed enough alcohol to keep an army drunk for over a week. I’m guessing we’ll use MAYBE 1% of the stuff he brought, but he’s far more optimistic than I am.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to post while we’re gone, so consider this my final post for 2007. Anything else is just a bonus!
I hope you all have a safe and wonderful New Year. I hope your 2008 is fabulous and happy and fulfilling, however you choose to live it.
Well Merry Belated Christmas! I had 5 fabulous days off work, and subsequently stayed as far away from a computer as I can get. Ok that’s not altogether true, but I did try to do more people to people things. Like go to the gym, and shop for Christmas presents on Christmas Eve (which I wouldn’t have had to do, had people just told me what the hell they wanted!). I also baked cookies to give away as gifts, bought super cute pre-decorated boxes to put gifts in (since a third grader can wrap presents better than I can) and watched a DVD of Jeff Dunham, one of the funniest ventriloquists I’ve ever seen. Of course, now I can’t stop shouting “Silence! I kill you!” to anyone who gets within 10 feet of me. (Get the DVD. Trust me.)
Christmas went well. We always go to my parent’s house in the morning and open stockings and gifts, and then we drove out to Jason’s aunt’s house to do our gift exchange and have dinner there. Both places were fun in their own way. My family does stockings in a slightly unusual fashion. We get the requisite candy and such, but we also get weird gag gifts. Bungee cords, cigars, anchovies, tire gages, miniature bananas, dog toys, and twist ties have all made an appearance in our stockings over the years. After we’ve pulled out our treasures, we barter and trade for other things. My dad always gets the cigars and anchovies in exchange for some form of candy. My sister trades away anything that isn’t plain chocolate in exchange for pretty much anything else. It’s always a lot of fun to do. We didn’t get to stay long, though, since we had to go out and see Jason’s family too. I was all sorts of domestic, helping his aunt get dinner made and on the table at a reasonable time. I really like his family, so it’s no hardship getting stuck in the kitchen with his mom, grandma and aunt while the menfolk stand around outside. The food is always good. I was proud of myself for not eating the plethora of cookies, and fudge, and other non-diet friendly treats available to me. I even kept my dinner portions pretty small, so I wouldn’t over eat. His mom and aunt both sent us home with a HUGE basket and platter of Christmas cookies, fudge and candy. It’s sitting in the fridge tempting me right now. I’m hoping Jason ate it all while I was at work, though I’m not holding my breath.
Work is very slow right now, which is great. I’ve got a lot of the end of the year work done already. Once that’s complete, I can clean my desk and work more on the company website. Both are things that I’m really not looking forward to, but that my boss has been a bit naggy about. But I deserve it. My desk is in a perpetual state of “Oh-my-hell-a-file-cabinet-exploded!” which works fine for me, but irritates everyone else. The website is coming along much more slowly than I’d thought it would, since I keep getting stuck on how to do new things. I just need to put my nose to the grindstone and push through it. Maybe tomorrow…
So Wednesday was my first night with the trainer at the gym. He’s pretty nice, and pushed me right up to my limit, without making me feel like an idiot. Of course, it was only my first night, so he was probably going easy on me. The only exercise I had trouble with was the squats. My quads are very weak, it appears. You start with your feet spread just past shoulder width, with your arms straight out in front of you, palms facing the floor. Then you squat to a seated position, trying to keep your back straight, and getting your knees to a 90 degree angle. Sounds easy, right? Try it. Step away from the computer and do 15. And on the 15th one, hold the squat position for 15 seconds. It hurts like hell. I did 3 sets of 15, and almost passed out from the pain. It was a killer. I managed to finish out the half hour, and still did another 30 minutes of treadmill when I was done. I felt pretty good that night after the workout. Thursday was a different story entirely. Oh I was completely fine as long as I didn’t do anything complicated. Like walking. Or sitting. I was in SUCH pain. My legs had gone on strike. My knees buckled every 3 or 4 steps. It was like walking on two sticks of jello. Or two sticks of unbendable iron, depending on how my legs were feeling at the moment. I pushed past it though. I went back to the torture chamber (formerly known as the gym) and did another half hour workout with the trainer, followed by another 30 minutes of cardio. But I feel good about myself (certainly not to be confused with feeling good, period). I’m not going to quit this time, not when it means so much.
Last night I had to bowl, and after warming up I felt ok. I only had pain right as I bent my knee to release the ball, so I’d grimace, and straighten out and everything would be fine. With the exception of the frame where instead of swinging the ball past my leg, I swung it right into my thigh. Not a fun experience on any other day, but it’s far more excruciating when your legs are already screaming with pain. I’d love to say that was the reason I didn’t bowl well, but I’d be lying. Have you ever been good at something, taken some time off, and then come back to not being good? It’s so frustrating. I know that I just need to get back into the swing of things. I took 18 months off and can’t expect to be back to where I was in a short 3 weeks. But it’s hard knowing I can do better, and I’m just not. I feel like I’m letting down my team. Of course, they’ve never said or done anything to make me feel that way. This is all me. But it’s making me crazy.
Most, if not all, of you have had to do the fasting blood test right? No eating or drinking after midnight the night before your test and all. Well I had to do that for my test Tuesday morning. Except I ate lunch at 2:30 on Monday, and kinda forgot to eat dinner. So when I got to my appointment at 10am (after sitting in traffic for THREE hours) it had been 19 1/2 hours since I’d last consumed food. I was, to put it mildly, starving. They tell me they don’t have my paperwork, and that I’ll have to wait until they find it before I can get my blood drawn. Oh, by the way, the wait is another hour and a half, and please have a seat over there. Apparently, they hadn’t heard I’d not had food for almost TWENTY HOURS AND OMG I AM GOING TO GNAW OFF MY ARM! Thankfully, the hour and a half turned out to be 45 minutes, and they found my paperwork right before I was called. They took 12 vials of blood; 6 small, and 6 huge. Then they sent me in for an EKG. This part scared me, because I’d never had or seen an EKG before, and all I knew was it was some test on your heart. What a waste of fear that was. They stick a bunch of wires on you, run a machine for 45 seconds, and then detach you. The setup and take down took longer than the actual test. I then took a chest x-ray, followed by a blood pressure check (108/64 yay!). Finally at noon I was dismissed for lunch. By that point, I was starting to get a little light-headed from lack of food. I met up with Duke for lunch, and ate some not-so-fabulous pasta and marinara sauce. Disappointing, truly, as pasta is my favorite food. This just had a sauce on it that made me want to vomit a little, despite me being starved. The bread, however, was wonderful. I should have just made a meal of that! (And I wonder why I’m fat.)
I got back to the hospital at 2:20 for my 2:30 appointment with the Transplant Nephrologist. You’d think, being a medical institution, they’d be running late, right? Nope! I had my height, weight, and temperature checked, along with another shot at my blood pressure (110/72 this time), and was seated in the exam room by 2:33. I didn’t even have a chance to finish the paperwork they’d wanted me to fill out, they were that on top of things. The doctor came in and introduced himself, and asked me a series of questions on why I was donating, if I was being coerced or forced to donate (apparently that’s pretty common), and about my medical history. He then did a brief physical exam (please explain to me why doctor’s tell you to breathe out after you’ve taken a breath? As if there was another option?) before asking me "What do you know about kidney donation?" Now, I don’t know what answer he was expecting from me, but it sure as hell wasn’t the one he got. I listed everything I knew. Infections stats, death stats, life expectancy after donation, risks, pros, cons, etc. There’s almost nothing about the process that I don’t know. When I was done, he just sat there quietly for a second, looking almost shell shocked, and then said "You’ve just ruined my entire spiel. I think you are the most prepared patient I’ve ever had." Now, that sounds all complimentary and nice, and I took it as intended. But later I started thinking about it. How is it possible for someone to go through this process, for someone to offer to be sliced open and have an organ removed, and not know everything there is to know about it? How is it possible that someone can consider doing this, and not know what the risk is? That just boggled me. Anyhow, he went through his speech anyway, just to make sure there was nothing I missed. The only thing he added was that they suggested I go off my birth control pill for one month preceding, and one month after the surgery, just to reduce the risk of blood clots. The pill already has a risk of blood clots all by itself, but added to this surgery, they’d prefer I didn’t take the extra risk. Fine by me! Jas was less than pleased when I told him, but he’ll get over it.
So that’s it. I have to wait a week or two for test results, and I go back on Jan 3rd for more tests, including the psychiatric exam. That part will be fun. Not because I think I’ll fail, but because I’m curious to see how they go about determining if I’m of sound mind. After that fun round of testing we wait, yet again, for the transplant committee to determine if I meet the criteria for donation. It’s a long time to keep our fingers crossed, but worth the wait if it works out. Today was supposed to be Kelly’s transplant, and I’m sure it was hard for her. Hopefully, in a month or two, I can give her a great belated Christmas present.
Huge thanks to everyone who has been praying, thinking happy thoughts, or just plain keeping their fingers crossed for me. It means more to me than I can adequately express.
I’m tired. I’m exhausted. I’m beat. I’m a variety of different words that all mean the same thing. But I wanted to take a quick minute to tell you all that the testing today went very well (as far as I can tell). I had a blood test, urine test, EKG, X-Ray, 2 blood pressure checks, a partial physical, and an introductory interview. I was on the road at 7am this morning, after sleeping a grand total of 45 minutes last night, so right now all I want to do is crash. But tomorrow I promise to post and tell you all about how things went, and how my super geekiness scared the interviewing doctor. G’night!
The law of averages has kicked me right in the ass.
I’ve been buying things online for at least 10 years now, and any time I have the choice, I pick UPS for shipping. They’ve been great every single time. I’ve always received my shipments on time, never damaged, and have even been able to switch delivery addresses with no hold up. Until now. Last Sunday (the 9th) I ordered my camera that my parents bought me for Hanukkah/Christmas. I paid for the shipping that guaranteed my camera would be here by Friday (the 14th), and was delighted when the UPS website said it would be delivered on Wednesday. And it was! Buuuuut, I wasn’t home. Apparently in my excitement to order the camera, I forgot to have it shipped to my office address instead of my home address. Usually, the UPS driver will take it to the office of my apartment complex, and I just pick it up from them when I get home. For whatever reason, they chose not to do that this time, and I just got a note saying they’d try to redeliver the next day. So I call UPS and spoke to a wonderful man who was happy to change the delivery address for me, and told me the package would be delivered on Friday, since it takes 1 business day to get an address correction. I was a little sad, but I agreed that Friday would be just fine.
So all day Friday I’m chomping at the bit, waiting for the UPS guy to arrive. And he does! And he has an Amazon box! I can hardly contain myself! I start to rip into the box, and notice that it’s not addressed to me. Disappointment creeps in. I ask the driver if he has anything else, but sadly he does not. So I call UPS (who’s website says my package is out for delivery) and ask them when it’ll be here. The woman says she shows that it’s still coming, and that it’s probably just on a different truck because of the address change. Ok fine, I can deal with that. So I wait. And wait more. And more. And it doesn’t come. So I call UPS again, and they say I can pick it up at their hub between 8 and 9. Great. Now I have to drive 25 miles out of my way, but at least I’ll get my camera, right? Oh guess again, my friends. I sat there for TWO HOURS while they looked for it.
Final answer? “We can’t find it.”
It wasn’t on the truck that delivers to my apartment complex. It wasn’t on the truck that delivers to work. It’s not at the hub. They’ve lost my package. But the supervisor promises to call me the next day (Saturday) with some sort of update. Perhaps it got on a different driver’s truck, and that driver hasn’t returned yet. Not a whole lot I can do about it at that point, so I leave. Does he call Saturday? Nope! So I call them, and I’m told that they can’t connect me directly with the customer center in Ontario (umm why the hell not?) but they’ll get Ontario the message and someone will call me within an hour. You can see where this is going, right? No one calls, and when I call back three hours later, I’m told no one will call me until Monday. Can I tell you how furious this makes me? All I want is a status. I want someone to say “Hey, we still don’t know where exactly your package is, but we’re working on it” or some customer pleasing bullshit like that. I don’t want to be told someone will call me, and then have to continually chase down that person, just to be brushed off.
It is now Monday, and the UPS website still says I’m picking up the package at Will Call last Friday. I tried calling again, and got the “someone will call you in an hour” deal. This time, I’m not holding my breath.
**UPDATE: It’s here! My camera magically appeared on a UPS truck and has been delivered to my office! Not so surprisingly, no one from UPS has returned my calls. Law of averages says this was bound to happen sometime, so I’m not giving up hope on UPS altogether. But I’ll be wary of them for a while longer.
My first appointments for second stage kidney donation testing are next Tuesday. They’d originally told me that it would probably be 2 to 3 weeks before I could get an appointment. I guess they were just kidding! I have 5 days to prepare for the beginning. My second appointments (there are 2 each time I drive up there) are scheduled for January 3rd. But it’s good that this is going so quickly. It’s less time for me to panic about it (though I’m becoming a champion speed panicker), and it means Kelly will get her new kidney quickly. I admit I’m really nervous. But it’s weird, because I’m more nervous about the pre-surgery testing than I am about the surgery. I’m afraid that not only will they reject me as a donor, but they’ll find something else wrong with me in the process. I realize that’s not likely, but it’s a thought I can’t seem to get out of my head. I spent a while today talking with Kevin (Kelly’s brother) and Eric (Kevin’s cousin, who donated his kidney to Kevin in October) abut the tests and surgery and after care. It’s actually a bigger deal in my head than it is in real life. Eric was very cool about giving it to me straight. Parts of it will suck (the 48 hour pre-surgery liquid only diet, the major post-surgery bloating from the CO2 they pump you with, the aches and pains) but it’s been almost two months, and he says if not for the scars, he’d never know he did it. I’ve done a ton of research on kidney donation, but hearing the real deal from someone who’s actually gone through it was a lot more comforting than reading facts and figures online.
In other news, I’m joining a gym tomorrow. I’m going to work with a personal trainer to lose the weight that I can’t get myself to lose. I lost some, gained some, lost more, gained more, gained more, gained more. I’ve gone back to only drinking water, and eating as many vegetables as I can get my hands on. But without working out, it’s all for naught. I need to lose 10 pounds to get back under the "obese" line that the BMI arbitrarily marks off. It won’t be too hard, as I’ve done it before. But this time I need to do it quicker, so I’m going to get help. I hate the gym. I hate feeling like everyone is looking at me and silently mocking the "fat girl." Irrational? Yes, since no one in there could possibly give a damn what I look like or what I’m doing there, but that’s my insecurity rearing it’s ugly head. I’ll start slow at the gym, so I’m not dying by the time I get to bowling. This weekend (thanks to the fabulous coupon sites y’all sent me) I’m going shopping for ONLY healthy food. If Jas wants junk, well he can store it in his car. It’s a well documented fact that I have no willpower, so I’m going to make sure there’s nothing in the house to tempt me. We’ll see how long that lasts.
Calling Karma! Your assistance is needed on aisle one!
Back in March of this year I went to UCLA and was tested to be a kidney donor for my boss, and good friend, Kelly. Two other girls from my office also went and were tested at the same time. Against some serious odds, we were all determined to be a match. One girl, we’ll call her Lisa, was a slightly better match than the other two of us, so it was decided that she’d go through with the rest of the testing. (UCLA will only have one person in the donor program (per recipient) at a time, due to costs of the tests). So Lisa did all her tests and passed. But at the same time, she’d decided to stop working for us and go into the sheriff’s academy. Supposedly, she told the department that she was going to be a donor, and they were all fine and dandy with it, as long as it was done after graduation. So surgery was scheduled for December 19th. She’d missed her last appointment for one reason or another, but had called Friday and said she’d absolutely be at the one scheduled for yesterday, even if she had to call in sick to her work. Except she lied, and didn’t show up. She left a voice mail finally, saying that she just couldn’t do it, she had her kids to think of, she was still young, etc. I understand being scared. I understand needing to put your kids first before everything else. What I don’t understand is how someone can wait until a week before the surgery is scheduled to say "Oh, hey, can’t do it, sorry!" That just infuriates me. If she couldn’t do it, she shouldn’t have dragged this out for 6 months. She should have said a long time ago that this wasn’t something you could commit to. It’s not like she didn’t know how old she was, or that she had kids depending on her. (although, her kids mean SO MUCH to her, that she shipped them out of state to stay with relatives while she did the academy. But I’m not a mom, so what do I know?) I’m just so pissed that she could do that to Kelly and feel fine about it. At the VERY least, she should have come in and talked to Kelly in person. You’re gonna back out, nut up and do it in person, don’t leave a fucking voice mail. (Or "ovary up" in this case, but that doesn’t have the same ring to it). I hope karma kicks her right in the kidney.
So this morning I called UCLA to schedule an appointment to continue testing for kidney donation. If all goes well, I’ll be giving Kelly my kidney in a couple months. When I first offered to get tested to do this, I did a TON of research on kidney donation. I know that there’s a 0.03% chance I could die in surgery. I know that there’s a 23% chance I’ll get some sort of infection, and have to stay in the hospital for up to a week. There is little that I don’t know about it. Even armed with all this knowledge, I’m still terrified. All the "what ifs?" keep running through my head. I could die. I could get very sick. Kelly’s body could reject the kidney totally, and the surgery would have been for nothing. And yet no part of me wants to back out. I want more than anything to give her this kidney. She’s a great person, and great friend, and it’s been so hard watching her be sick so often, or knowing that she has to sit in a chair for 3+ hours so the dialysis can clean out her blood three days a week. It’s hard knowing that she’s been waiting for a kidney for so long, and her brother got one in no time at all. I only wish I’d done the research sooner, and offered to donate 3 years ago when I found out she needed a kidney. Better late than never, I guess.
Yay! My Our camera has been ordered! It should be here in the longest 3-5 days ever. My parents gave me Jas and me money toward the purchase of it, and I (yeah, just I) couldn’t possibly be more excited. (SEE? Gift cards and cash are WONDERFUL!) Of course, now I have to get memory cards, and a case, and a tripod, and a book, and all kinds of other things. But I’ll probably wait on everything but the memory cards until after Christmas. Jas has already staked his claim on the old camera so he can take pictures of the junk he sells on ebay. Have at it buddy!
The family Hanukkah torture session celebration was at my parents house last Saturday night. I think I was there for maybe 15 minutes before my head started pounding. We’re such a loud people. It doesn’t help that half the elders can’t hear at all, so anyone talking to them needs to shout. And since some people are shouting, other people start shouting to be heard about the first shouters. It’s grand, I tell you. Dinner was mediocre at best. El Pollo Loco chicken, salad, and latkes. Bleh. The salad was alright, and I choked down some chicken, just so I wouldn’t pass out from hunger (I had to drown it in ranch dressing to get past the taste). I hate latkes. They’re just disgusting. We all joke that this comes from my non-Jew blood (thanks Dad!), but I really can’t see how anyone can like them. Especially when the person making the batter forgets (or just refuses) to put in a little lemon so the potatoes don’t turn grey. It looks like sludge to me. Therefore the latkes come out looking like fried sludge. Ew.
Of course, after dinner came the annual argument. Our extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) decided a couple of years ago to stop getting each other gifts, and instead donate the money to a charity. I like the idea. A) It saves me from trying to figure out what my 2nd cousin’s husband wants for Hanukkah, when I see him maybe three times a year, and exchange 12 words at best. B) It’s for a good cause. Naturally, being the close-knit family that we are (I couldn’t even type that with a straight face), we can never agree on anything. Lots of worthy and not-so-worthy causes were suggested. Lots of yelling, and disagreeing, and pouting ensued. Votes were cast and counted, and then re-cast and counted. Finally we settled on the American Cancer Society, which cracks me up because we’ve chosen them for the last 3 years. All that fuss and fanfare just to choose the same place as before. Aren’t we brilliant?
Yesterday, I spent the day recovering from my overdose of family. I took a nap, read a book, played online, and did nothing productive until after 6pm. I made brownies (SO yummy), did some light shopping, and bought the Sunday paper so I could start clipping coupons. I was a little disappointed in the lack of coupon selection in our papers. Maybe my memory is faulty, but it seems like there were tons in there when I was a kid. Maybe I’m just getting the wrong paper. My next plan, in my never-ending quest to stretch money as far as possible, is to check those online sites for coupons to use. I’m a little hesitant, since they look like they’re a little fake and possibly full of spyware and junk mail. But since Jason has decided to quit his bartendng job without finding another job to replace it, I’m in a bit of a pinch. If any of you have any suggestions for a reputable coupon dispensing website, I’d love to hear it!
I sorta know where my phone is. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I called my phone company tonight to see if maybe they could turn the service back on and call the phone to see if someone answers. During this trial, I was looking into my account to see about getting a replacement phone. The wonderful woman at the phone company was unable to get through to my phone (the battery was dead, or the phone had been shut off), but she took a look at my account. Lo and behold there had been calls placed! To Syria! Now, I have friends all over the place, but none of them reside in Syria, so I was certain it was not me that had made those calls. $164 in charges to Syria made in an hour and a half.
Here’s the thing. The people upstairs from me, the elephant people, they’re middle eastern and a few don’t speak English. I admit, I fully 110% admit that this does not in any way mean that they took my phone. However, the guy next door said he saw them out and about during the time that my phone disappeared from the sidewalk. The fact that the phone was right outside their apartment stairs, combined with the possibility that they know people in Syria due to their ethnicity, combined with the fact that they were seen in the vicinity of the phone during the time of disappearance, sorta leads me to believe that they have it. Or at least had it. There’s nothing concrete saying they have it. Just because they are middle eastern does not mean they MUST know people there. Not all Asians know people in Asia. Same with Mexicans, Englishmen, and every single other ethnicity. I am am not accusing them of having it. I’m just saying that, to me, the evidence appears to suggest that they might be involved somehow. And that is SO frustrating. I went up there TWICE to see if they’d seen the phone. Both times I talked to the women there, so I think tomorrow I’ll see if I can find one of the menfolk. Perhaps the women are just too scared to say something. I don’t want to press charges. I don’t want to cause a fuss. I simply want my phone back.
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