A Kidney for Katrina

"Count your many blessings, name them one by one..." I am so very thankful for all of the blessings in my life.  Yes, I have challenges, but I don't focus on what I don't have or don't get to do.  If you ask me how I am, I most likely will always "I'm fine" or "I'm good" and it is the truth for the following reasons: 1. I woke up today 2. I am able to talk to you, a person who cares enough about me to ask, and that's wonderful 3. I have a wonderful husband. 4. I got my daughter up today as well, gave her love, let the dog out, and checked on my chickens...all good things 5. I have a wonderful home 6. I have wonderful friends and family 7. I have most of my health and what I don't have is currently mostly managed with not too many medications or alterations in my schedule. 8.  My fridge and pantry are full and if they aren't I can easily replenish them. 9.  I am able to work on projects that make me h

Ya'll, supposedly I'm mostly "non-symptomatic" with this whole kidney failure nonsense I've got going on but somebody forgot to notify my feet and ankles that they are supposed to behave and not act like my stomach at an all you can eat buffet.  Seriously.  My toes look like fat little sausages and my ankles are just squishy extensions of my calves. To add insult to injury, whenever my toes cause a sausage craving, I can't even eat the delicious sausage because there's too much salt and it'll cause even more swelling.  Also maybe my toes shouldn't cause me to want food, but that's a mental thing not a kidney thing. In the grand scheme of things this is a minor inconvenience, but does anybody have any recommendations for a sock that doesn't look like it's trying to chop my foot off my leg?  No really.

End stage kidney disease is a long waiting game, one I've played for a while now and have always known that the time would come for me to need a new kidney or dialysis.  Well, I'm a little closer.  We just went through a big move and change in our lives so obviously it is also time for a drop in kidney function.  I have dropped from a steady 17% to about 13%.  My doctor thinks that I will be able to wait until I'm closer to 5% before needing to start dialysis because overall I'm not very symptomatic and my other levels are pretty stable, which means I am really good at this game and am winning. Today I received a call from Vilda, the wonderful transplant coordinator at Walter Reed, with the recommendation that I return to actively asking and looking for a donor, in the event that the amazing potential donor I wrote about here  is unable to donate.  This will prevent me from having all of my kidneys (eggs) in one basket and  hopefully decrease the wait time for a tra