Kidney day

It was our 6 month post op kidney testing day for the ALTOLD study (long term outcome of living donation). This is awesome for so many reasons....to start with, the obvious- they pay us. :) They are paying us and we get more detailed information than anyone else gets. AWESOME! If anything were to ever not be right, we'll know first, and before it gets to be a big problem. NOT that anything is going to go wrong, but no one gets to see the damage they are inflicting on themselves days to day, and it's nice to have someone peeking at what's going on, ya know?
So that was 2 reasons. 3rd, it's a day off for me, and 2 meals cooked and I love the U's food. It rocks. The open faced beef sandwhich I had was freakin HEAVENLY. LOVE IT! and 4th- my sister is such a f*cking WIMP about blood and needles, and it makes me cry from laughing. Picture this: Michelle, in the hospital bed, with both arm not bending---she CAN bend them, she's ALLOWED to bend them, but she cries when she bends them because it grosses her out. NO matter how many times she's told there are NO NEEDLES in her arms, she will not bend them. So our food comes, and she looks longingly at her tray. Finally, she can take it no more and she really, really wants that bacon, since it's done just right. So instead of bending her freakin arm to grab it and put it in her mouth, she faceplants on the tray. Unfortunately for her, this doesn't work so well for her frenchtoast, so just like last time, I have to cut up her food and feed her, which also makes me cry laughing.
We hadn't met the new head of the study, and when I imagined it (ugh, I'm going to out myself as super weird for the millionth time), I couldn't picture her, but I pictured her sitting and chatting and asking me if I were on TV. Isn't that stupid? I'm not that much of an attention whore! I don't have the urge to tell people that for one little second, I did something that mattered enough to get a spot on TV (even though it was all for the publicity of the U's work). I don't care. We don't watch it. Can I stop trying to convince you now? I DON'T CARE, so that was weird to me.
So can you guess what happened? Nicole comes in, and sits down, we make small talk and she says (drum roll...) "Wait! Were you on television????" Another girl comes in and she says "This is the one who started the paired exchange. We all got the email about it, it was a really big deal for us!" :) Both those girls worked in the transplant center for 10 years. Anyway, weird.
We came home and Payten came running up. My first instinct was to shhhhhh her for the babies. :) It's funny how quickly it all "comes back". I hear babies crying anywhere and I'm looking around for who it is.
Oh, I tried to read a Cosmo to kill some time after I finished the stupid book I was reading (I give it 6 out of 10 stars), and WHAT THE HELL! For real, Stupid World, NOTHING is ever going to get any better with you all putting all that garbage in the hands of young women. Granted, they are the ones buying it, but if we put GOOD things out there, they'd buy that too! I'm horrified, and disgusted and I didn't make it even half way through.
Either that, or I'm getting old.
I can't WAIT for the kidney get together on Sunday! This matters not, probably, but I'll tell you who is going to be there. I am SO happy I get to see them again! I can't WAIT! Here is how the chain went: I donated to Shannon (he won't be there), his sister donated to Mark (he WILL be there!) , Marks friend Ann (she WILL be there!!!) donated to Priscilla (she WON'T be there), Priscilla's friend John (he WON'T be there) donated to Ron (who WON'T be there)...Ron's niece Heather (she WILL be there) donated to Matt (who WILL be there). Got it? Me, Cullen, Ann, Matt, Heather and their spouses. Can't WAIT!! Did you know that? It sound so generic that way, doesn't it? Here is why I like it so much....I think that all people are connected. We're connected to people we don't consciously know. People we're not even aware of. Right now, you could donate your kidney to someone who is going to die without it (just one example of millions)- without you. It sucks a little bit to say it like that, but it's true. Do you understand? It's true- if you were do choose to donate, someone lives. If you don't, they will die. People die every day, all the time, for a billion reasons. We can make such a huge difference in so many millions of ways- in fact, we DO make a difference. We have no idea what we do, really. So here I have these group of "strangers" that I didn't know, that I know now. I get to see how we're connected. My family has been affected by these people. I've affected people in their families that I don't know. It's like the lights got turned off, and a black light turned on, and the beautiful, shimmering almost invisible strings that are weaved between all of us show up. I can see now. Love.
Happy Friday!
Happy Friday!