Today is a happy day: I have new Birks!

You see, my dialysis schedule is messed up because of the holidays. This isn't so bad, because it allows for my new year's eve plans to go forward without a hitch. However, when we talked to my Uncle Joe on Christmas Day and he asked if we had any plans over the weekend, I completely forgot about dialysis.

The plan was that they--they being Uncle Joe, his wife, my cousin Em and her husband--were supposed to show up at my house about noon. This is right about the same time I'm done with dialysis, and y'all know what dialysis does to me. For those of you who don't, sometimes I can barely stand up after three and a half hours of having my blood pumped out, filtered then pumped back in. Sometimes I'm throwing up, sometimes I have a killer headache. Sometimes I'm fine.

So Mom calls Dad, complaining that Joe is his brother, why can't they meet at his apartment, or why can't we all meet at a restaurant. After a little bit of conversation, they hang up and Dad says he'll call Joe. What I think is that he's going to suggest meeting at the restaurant, but he called back saying that he left a message cancelling the whole deal.

Now, in my book, that's simply not done. I was completely horrified, so I call and leave a subsequent message saying that Dad misunderstood me, that I was simply hoping to push back their arrival time by an hour or so, and that I'd see them all tomorrow. Then I called Dad and told him he's expected here by 12:30. I guess we'll all go to lunch.

On the bright side, Maya's bear arrived from Germany today, just as cute as advertised. Oh, so cute and cuddly. I think she'll love it. It came in a cloth bag from the bear store, printed in German. I guess that adds to the authenticity. All I need to do is tie a ribbon around the bag handles, then I have to wrap Adam's robots, then the box will be ready to go. I have several other things to mail, so I should plan on spending Monday morning at the Post Office.

What joy for me. Some of the things I have to mail should have been mailed six months ago. I'm such a slacker.

One of my regular readers, who is also a very dear friend, asked for a medical update. He said "I still have this perhaps dumb idea that you are going to be 100% well sometime before too long. Is that possible?" Well, I don't know exactly. My first possible living donor starts testing on January 7. If she's a match, we go ahead with the second kidney transplant as soon as possible. If she's not a match, I start looking among friends and relatives for somebody else who's willing to donate.

Dr. Jonsson is very confident that the second transplant will go better than the first. I have no reason to doubt him on that. Other than my difficulties with dialysis, I am feeling better. My back still hurts quite a bit, but I will be working with a massage therapist to fix that. I think she'll do a lot of good toward fixing the rest of what's wrong with my body.

I believe that a couple of months after my second transplant, whenever that happens, I'll be able to return to work. I do expect to make a full recovery and live a completely normal life... eventually.

Ian, I think that means the answer to your question is yes.

before - after