6 more weeks!!!

Today marks the official start of my kidney countdown....6 weeks from today (tentatively, of course) Adam will donate his kidney to me. Wow.

This also made me realize that my time off work has been F-L-Y-I-N-G.  It's already been 5 1/2 weeks!!!!  I looked at my "list" that I made right when I stopped working, and I'm about 60% of the way through it, so that's not too bad.  Unfortunately, I have the re-organization/cleaning up of the basement ahead of me, and I dread it :(

Speaking of basement...I was down there over the weekend looking for my raincoat and I stumbled across a few boxes of old photos from college. What a sobering trip down memory lane.  I loved going through those photos....they were from such happy, formative years in my life.

This was probably 1997.....l-r would be friends Courtney and Holly (who I've known since 3rd grade) and my freshman roomate Carrie.

     

1996?

I'm so glad I have photographs from that time in my life (I'm sure the friends in these photos will look at these and smile too :)  I'll always have the memories, but photos make them so much better!!!  And then I spent the day listening to music from that time period, which ALWAYS makes me happy.  I woke up Monday feeling like I was 22 all over again.

That's one of the things I hate about this disease.  I'm feeling completely robbed of my 30's as they were spent waiting for the inevitable.  Maybe I'd feel the same regardless of the FSGS, but we'll never know.  I don't exactly like this whole "getting older" thing either.  There are so many things  on my bucket list, and I already feel like I'm running out of time.  My body has put such limits on what I can do.  I'm getting a second chance, but it's still a 41-year old body that's coming out of that surgery.  I worry that I won't have my expectations in check, because I'm not sure if I can blame sore knees or the inability to lose the upcoming weight gain on FSGS or CKD (but of course I'll try :).

I've done one EPO injection so far at home (will do it again tomorrow).  I've had so many people comment to me saying something to the extent of, "I don't know how you do it".  And honestly, I don't either sometimes.  I used to have to give myself injections a few years ago, and I absolutely HATED it, but now it's no big deal.  I just buckle down and stick the needle in my belly.  3 years ago it would've taken me a half hour to do it.  What I'm saying is that you'd be impressed with yourself if you knew what you were capable of doing when there isn't another option.

I'm still going to yoga regularly, but I wish that my favorite instructor had a class on Friday.  He teaches Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, but I usually need a full day in between hot yoga classes so I don't go on Thursday, which means I've only been getting 2 hot workouts a week and supplementing with Yogadownload.com and Youtube on the other days.  There used to be a 75-minute workout on Sundays at 11:30, but they moved it to 9:30 for the summer and that just isn't happening for me on a Sunday.  I found a pretty decent set of videos on youtube today for handstand and headstand prep, and I did one of them today at home and it was perfect!  Good pacing, no annoying music, ~30minutes....perfect.

One of the things on my list was to clean out my freezer.  That particular item isn't going as well as I'd hoped, mainly because I've lost most of my sense of taste.  I can still taste sweet things a little but salty, sour and bitter don't even register and umami just tastes like metal.  It's completely ruining my appetite, and thus I no longer want to cook anything.  This couldn't be coming at a worse time because I need to keep increasing my protein intake, and protein tastes....well....awful.  All I want to eat is cereal.  I'm scared to cook for anyone because I can't taste or season things appropriately.

Ahhhhh....just another thing to look forward to in 6 MORE WEEKS!!!!!