Last Friday I had a CT scan of my kidneys. It was a quick relatively painless procedure. I did have to have an IV (I'm a hard stick) but God was watching over me and the tech and she got the IV on the first stick. They inject dye or "contrast media" which outlines my kidneys during the scan. The dye gave me the feeling like I was wetting my pants. The tech warned me before hand so that prepared me for the sensation.

The next step is an appointment with a transplant surgeon. I have an appointment on January 12. He will decide if I am a candidate to donate my kidney, from there I will see a laparoscopic surgeon who will do the surgery. Hopefully the surgery will occur in January or February.

Giant Step

Today I met with the transplant coordinator, the nephrologist and a social worker. They each asked me if I really wanted to donate my kidney to my husband. I told each of them that I absolutely wanted to do it. It is going to be scary but I got a lot of good information from each person. I need to get several people involved to help coordinate our post op care. That is what's the scariest; depending on others to care for us. There will be about 2 or 3 weeks where we will depend on others to look after us.
I also need to lose more weight. That's tough. I will also need to keep it off so I don't develop diabetes later in life which could lead to kidney failure.
This is the first big step toward my goal of getting my husband to feel better and get back to his old self.

Another Day

I hate telling people about Drew's health problems. People start to look at you differently. We need help from people to get through this process, but I hate the look of pity.

The Time's a Coming

My husband has polycystic kidney disease. We have known this since 1989. My husband takes excellent care of himself hoping to remain healthy. We just found out Drew's lab shows he is going into renal failure and fairly soon. I am going to give him one of my kidneys if I'm compatible. this is the link to the national foundation's web site if you want to read about PKD. http://www.pkdcure.org/ We both need sponsors, someone who can watch out for us. I don't know who we are going to get.

My Husband is a Hard Worker

My husband is a hard worker. He decided he wanted to prevent his mulch from washing away when it rained. He decided to put river rock along the side of the "natural" area. He worked all day long on Saturday and did an excellent job. Gardening is his hobby and his passion. He works long hours in the yard and it shows.

Tax Season

My taxes are done! This is a change from last year, last year I didn't get our taxes done until October (after filing an extension). I had started a new position last January and I felt somewhat overwhelmed. I hate paper work and my new position requires alot of paper work. My husband doesn't help either; he takes all the paper on the kitchen counter trash and all and puts it on the desk. We get so much trash in the mail. Plus we get medical insurance statements and stock statements, it turn into alot of mail.
Also my husband had started a business and deals strictly with cash. He doesn't earn that much but I wanted to be as honest as I could.
It feels so good to get them done.

New Back Splash

We finally got our back splash put in today. We started our kitchen remodel last May. Drew acted as contractor and has done a fabulous job. We hit a snag when it came to selecting a back splash between our counter top and cabinets. My husband and I argued I mean discussed what we wanted but neither of us (really me) could decide what we (I) wanted. I finally gave up and told my husband to handle it. Of course he did an excellent job.

Slept Well Last Night

I slept well last night, actually all day yesterday and last night. After I got home from my 24 hour shift, I slept from 10:00a.m.to 4:00p.m. then 11:00p.m. to 7a.m. I love to sleep after a call shift like that. Now I have Saturday, Sunday and Monday off.
I watched Oprah yesterday, it was very moving. Her show was on animal mills, it broke my heart. We got our last 3 inside cats from the animal shelter. We also have an outside cat that has adopted us. Early on we caught her and had her spayed. She has been around for 4 years which is a long time for a strictly outside cat. We've made her a nice warm and dry place to sleep in the winter and feed her as frequently as our inside cats. This picture is of Lucky, our outside cat. She will come up to our door and look inside to let us know she's here. My husband can actually pet her if he approaches her slowly.

Millie's World as She Sees It

This is my blog and I have things to say. I have worked in the health care industry all of my life. I started out as an X-ray tech. I started X-ray school straight from high school. I figured if I didn't like working as an X-ray tech, I could use the skills to support myself until I could figure out what I wanted.
Right out of X-ray school, I started working nights in the ER of a level one trauma center (they really didn't have levels then but if they had this would have been a level one). I got to do alot more then X-rays at night. The ER was staffed with 2 RNs, an ER doc and an intern. I got to hang blood (after the RN checked it) and help with intubations (hand the doc suction or the tube). I got interested in doing more than X-rays. I went back to school and received my diploma in nursing while working full time in X-ray at night.
I went directly into ICU nursing when I graduated nursing school. I learned a tremendous amount. I became frustrated with how the unit was run so I became interested in management. I also felt I was not paid what a I was worth so I went back to school to get my bachelor's degree. I started out majoring in computer science (like my brothers) and after having to drop out of calculus or fail, I switched to nursing.
While working on my bachelor's degree I became interested in nurse anesthesia. Anesthesia had become safer with the advent of several patient monitors so I felt it was worth pursuing. 16 years ago I became a nurse anesthetist. What an awesome job I have!