It's less than a week now!!!

It still doesn't seem real yet but it's only 6 more days until transplant.

My friend, Annika, arrived yesterday from Sweden and even that didn't make it any more "real".  She's more like family though, so maybe that's why (but MAN is it good to see her).  She'll be the one taking care of me after I'm discharged from the hospital but still in Rochester.

I have dialysis from 3-6pm today, and then we'll be driving down to Mayo.  I tried to call the center this morning to see if there were any spots open earlier, but no go today which is a complete bummer.  I'm pretty useless after dialysis, and I usually feel pretty awful, so sitting in a car for 2 hours AFTER dialysis, driving in the snow sounds SUPER FABULOUS (said with as much sarcasm as can come across in written form).

This is my catheter.  You cannot BELIEVE how much this thing itches.

I usually put an ice pack on it through dialysis to help with the itching.  It's this and a Benadryl that get me through.

And this is what I deal with when not in dialysis.  It's pretty big and difficult to hide...I guess I should be happy that it's scarf-weather now because that's the only way I'm able to do it :)

I'm going to spend what time I have left at home making sure I have everything that I think I need, packing it up and getting it in the car because we'll probably leave directly from dialysis.  It's a shit-tastic fall weather day, complete with rain, wind and the chance of snow tonight.  We'll arrive pretty late tonight to the hotel in Rochester and I imagine I'll be exhausted.

The day starts bright and early tomorrow;  I have appointments starting at 7:00am through the early afternoon, and they include blood draw and urine test, transplant coordinator, transplant pharmacist, research coordinators, x-ray and EKG.

Have I mentioned how excited I'll be to have these tubes out of my body?  Granted, I know it won't be right away, but the best thing will be a proper shower without having any catheter's to worry about!