stories of a real life wonder woman

Since we keep getting a lot of questions about the chemo I've been on I will try to address them...I had my last dose on Friday...it takes about 6 hours for the infusion to go in my body and it's so boring...not really painful...they give me Tylenol and Benadryl before hand to help me not have a reaction...that combo makes me super tired and if I don't get sleep...like I didn't the other day I get super cranky...the types of reactions they are trying to prevent is fever upset stomach any type of allergic reaction as well...no I will not lose my hair...it's too low a dose and I only had five doses whereas cancer patients has tons more than that...they put me through the chemo to kill my immune system...they do this so that when it builds back up it will not try to attack my new kidney as much...the immune system only knows the kidney as a foreign object not that it's helping so you have to trick it with chemo and anti-rejection meds...the chemo means that I shoul

My mind is still a bit blown over all that has happened this week...which means I am not quite sure what to write...I feel like my thoughts are all over the place...so my blog tonight may nto make a lot of sense...you'll just have to forgive me for that... First - people keep asking me about getting the call...so I guess maybe I should share that whole experience with you all since you seem interested...to say I wasn't expecting it at all would be an understatement...I was in my room looking up something on facebook from my iPod and noticed that my phone was ringing...I didn't know the number but have gotten used to answering unknown numbers since I know that it could be the doctor's office...I also saw that it was a 309 number when I briefly looked at my phone before answering it so I figured it was either my dialysis nurses calling about something or them calling about some order for my machine...then she said it was Jen from transplant offices...so I thought maybe

The past few days have been a bit of a whirl wind...not that I am complaining because this has been a great gift from God making me feel overwhelmed by his love... I call my old kidney a diva because it has been causing so many problems...and I have already been calling his new one a diva too since the transplant time kept getting pushed back since it was taking forever to get here...but also in classic diva style when it got here it got right down to work...surgery was supposed to take 4 - 6 hours...but it ended up only taking 2 hours...I thought for a hot second I was going to have a panic attack when they rolled me down to the room but when I got in there Dr. Hsu was listening to Willie Nelson on his iPad and that calmed my nerves right up...funny how a familiar sounding voice can do that...and I am not even that big a Willie Nelson fan... My surgery officially took place on Wednesday the 19th at 2 in the morning...we laughed about the date because I love the number 9...the timi

First I really want to give a shout out to my brother Wes...I saw him this week and I haven't seen him in a long time...as always my brother made me feel special...and I loved that he told me he gets excited when he sees that I have a new blog up to read...I love hearing that type of thing from people...I don't always know what to do with that news but it often makes me what to talk about them on my blog...so you should know that I am very thankful for Wes and seeing him always puts me in a good mood...even when he is sort of scolding me for having a 2.2 hemoglobin...which was actually kind of nice because he knew what that meant... Also since it's father's day I should say that I am glad my father is still around...I'm thankful that God isn't finished with him yet and still has plans for him so that I can have him in my life...last year on father's day we were hanging out in the hospital...so this year chilling at home has been much more relaxing...and I&

So I don't really know what I want to post today... Mom went to Peoria this week to meet some more people and have some more tests done but we won't know anything until sometime next week maybe...the results of this one will determine if we really get the ball rolling on transplant or not...mom also has a cold now too so that's no fun... I am finally starting to feel better...which is nice...after a couple weeks of feeling super sick and not being able to get out of bed much...I have energy again...my doctor had to change around my meds again...it would appear my body doesn't like large doses of anything even if it is good for me...like the iron IV I had to do...I felt like I was dying...one time the morning after I had the IV I felt like I couldn't move my legs...weird and painful...but now I am off it again and my blood count is up so I think maybe we will be ok for a while... Besides that it seems like not much is going on...my friends are coming home from

Things have been stressful around here...my health has been on the nuts side...I've been pretty sick and there have been many times when we haven't been sure what to do...not sure if I will be worse in the morning and needing to go to the hospital...in Peoria with complications holding us up from doing transplant in July...it sort of feels like with the more tests mom passes...the sicker I get..which is no good since I need to be healthy enough to be able to make it through surgery... This has left us all on edge and feeling emotional... This morning mom and I had a little chat...and we both ended up crying...but we were able to say things to each other that we have needed too...so this morning was one of many times when we both stand by the box of tissues blowing our noses and wiping our eyes... I think you should know that despite what I say or share on here...I suck at sharing my true feelings...I don't know how to articulate how I am feeling...or I don't want