Sweet Smelling Sheets.....

 I have, rather late in life, re-acquired the habit of making my bed every morning.  On Saturday or Sunday, I put on fresh everything, so last night I climbed into soft, clean, sweet-smelling sheets.  This is one of the simplest, richest blessings.

All week Facebook has been kindly reminding me of my life 2 years ago this week.  Babygirl was desperately ill, and I was as far from anything like home as I've been in a long time.  She is sitting with me now, looking for furniture for her room.  We are both sipping coffee, and the peace and sense of home is...intense.  The silence that a snowstorm brings surrounds the house.  The grandkids are blessedly asleep. I have a dog at my feet, and Babygirl has one at her side.  (The little Basshole is sleeping upstairs, anything but sweet smelling.  She helped clean up a small spill of THC oil yesterday and has alternatively been unconscious, paranoid-high and/or vomiting &etc. There is a bath in her immediate future once she regains some coordination.)

I have so, so much to be grateful for.  We didn't accidentally kill the dog last night.  I have a home that can be reconfigured to fit in those who need a place.  I have caring family, a fantastic workplace, and everyone I love is NOT in a hospital right now. 

And sweet, clean, warm flannel sheets.  

DeeDee

Hearing the Harps.....

 Like many people, the last few days have had a lot of errands to run, small tasks to manage and gatherings to plan.  We've had a lot of LOUD.  Vigorous car conversation. Loud singing, exclamations of joy and despair, background "All I want for Christmas is YOOOUUUUUUUU" and the like. There's been some pretty loud laughter.

At one point yesterday Bean came out of the bathroom crying: "There's a MONSTER in there." Babygirl's priceless reply? "Well, stop looking in the mirror." 

Many of you are aware that I am a natural introvert.  I need peace and quiet to recharge, one of the reasons I tend to get up early in the morning.  

By noon today I was home, so I made beef stew in the crock-pot for dinner. Then I took a look at our tree, a notable work in progress LOL.  The bin of ornaments has been sitting next to my chair since Thanksgiving, entered into periodically by short people of varied tastes and heights.  The grandkids are occupied upstairs, so I opted for a solitary session of finishing up the tree.

I set my phone to Celtic Harp Music and got to work.

Some music helps bring space into the soul.

We all possess layers and layers of memories.  And there is nothing like a box of ornaments for a good archaeological dig through a lot of years. 

My great-grandmother was a German immigrant, but since the Pickle Ornament was created by American Germans, we never heard of that.  However, no tree was complete without gilded nuts and pinecones, and I have a handful of those cones to remember her by.  

My grandmother loved music, and although the small set of tiny ceramic orchestra ornaments I once had have broken and disappeared, I have replaced them with brass horns and guitars along the way.

My mom loved anything, ANYTHING that would go on a Christmas tree, especially straight silver tinsel hung JUST SO. Any unwanted aging ornaments were donated to us kids to make a festive mess of the upstairs hall with. As her life narrowed with age, her last tree was a tiny thing.  One of the last boxes I opened today yielded me a double handful of tiny glass balls, teddy bears, Santas and rocking horses, the last ornaments she purchased. I don't have a lot of her earlier ones, although I'm betting she glittered up a couple of those pinecones. The ornament Hospice gave her for her last Christmas is there.

My aunt and uncle donated a ton of stuff to me when they closed their store and moved local. Mercifully, I have managed to break most of it. 

My angel was a give from my dad and his wife, an old-fashioned hand-crocheted-and-starched beauty.  Currently Squeaker has given her a candy cane, placed on her shoulder and ready to be thrown javelin-style.

There are the obligatory and much-loved hand made kid ornaments. There is an ornament I hand made in prison to kill time on a visit there to the foster kids' mom. There is one remaining of the Three Little Pigs that Citygirl adored. Lots of coworkers have contributed. There are ornaments from many patients, including one odd little cat-on-a-pillow gifted to me in my first year in practice shortly before the patient died, a heartful of lessons learned.

Some go back to somewhat lonelier seasons when I was away from home and made do with what I had, or celebrated with fellow students and residents. I have one absolutely amazing memory of a full southern Thanksgiving dinner gifted by an attending physician for those of us stuck on call.  And there was one Christmas Eve walking hand in hand with Citygirl's dad through Rockefeller Center and St Patrick's cathedral.

There remains magic in us if we take the time to let the harps play.  My tree is finished, and a different kind of beautiful than it was before I added on.

DeeDee

PS Our recent visit to Rochester was a blessed non-event. All is well. Follow up in MARCH.

Fairy Infestation.....

 Once Upon A Time Citygirl was an only child.  When she was about 4, I bought an Advent Calendar from LL Bean for her. It's lovely, bright colors, with 25 little compartments, about 1.5 x 3 inches. My thought was that I'd put some little trinket in there, and every few days put in a note with an activity to do. For example, the 5th door has a pair of ice skates on it, and I planned to take her ice skating that day.

Best laid plans....

By the time Citygirl opened the third door she was ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that there was a creature called the Advent Calendar Fairy. Well.  I guess the Calendar Fairy could suggest activities also....

Fast forward a few years.  Add a half-a-dozen kids and some foreign exchange students. Not ONCE did anyone suggest that they had never before heard of such an incredibly specialized fairy.  She came every single night for 25 days while everybody was asleep for a very LONG time.  

I think there might have been 1 Fairy Free year.  And there were a couple of years where the Fairy came only on weekends for visiting grandchildren.

Now, Curlygirl's little Bean is living with us (I assure you that I did not select that nickname. Talk to her Gammy!).  Babygirl pulled out the Calendar and set the Fairy back to work.  Today the Fairy left a Barbie toothbrush, likely to offset the damage she will likely create with the candy she frequently leaves.  Squeaker will get things from the Fairy on the weekends he is here as well.

I'm glad Babygirl holds this as such a special childhood memory that she is willing to go Fairy Shopping. I am glad to see, that like I once did, she suddenly awakens after bedtime to run down and help the Fairy so Bean doesn't wake up to an empty little door.    

I'm incredibly grateful that my oldest unintentionally created what has become two generations of believers in that special little being. When I see parents today doing the Elf on the Shelf, I understand why they do it, (even while I send inappropriate memes to the ones of my kids who do it LOL).  We have such a little time to create magic in the little souls entrusted to us.  

So our house has a Nativity, a Calendar Fairy, and Santa.  I've become a believer in all of them.

DeeDee

PS Because this story isn't sweet enough....

Bean sent me a video of herself talking to the world (like she has her own YouTube channel) about the Fairy. She came down the stairs and around the corner to the Barbie toothbrush.  She was incredibly pleased and excited, and told all of us that she was going to leave the Fairy one of her littlest toys so she could play.

Well. I'm speechess and a little teary-eyed. 

Normal Sick...

 Babygirl is slightly less than 6 months out from the transplant.  At the six-month mark, we can be reasonably confident that all of the things they gave her to keep her from early rejection (you know, all but killing her immune system) are wearing off.  This means that her own immune system should be up and running at its normal? Umm, very sluggish? pace.  In plain English, she's not as likely to get so terribly ill from a minor illness. 

To give a more subtle view of Before Six Months vs After Six Months:

Before Six Months: Don't bother getting vaccinated with anything you need lasting immunity from (COVID, shingles, tetanus) because her immune system is unlikely to remember that it ever happened. Maybe hold off on the Flu shot as well. 

About 3 weeks ago we all had a cold.  Of the four of us (did I mention Curlygirl and her daughter Bean live here now?) I got the sickest, missed a day of work, and was generally miserable. I still have the cough.

I've come to call these episodes the "Grandma Flu" since it seems something like this happens whenever we spend time with the Grands, especially the littles. 

Four or five days ago, Bean got cold symptoms. Then Curlygirl. Then Babygirl. By Wednesday she was miserable: Cough, body aches, endless snot, chills. 

Yesterday the fever came. Fever strikes fear into the hearts of those caring for immune suppressed patients. While some diseases naturally cause fevers, colds typically do not unless the patient isn't fighting hard enough by other means. Fever means you MUST be evaluated. However....fever notwithstanding, this is probably a cold. Of course, it could also be Influenza, and knowing THAT offers us an antiviral for treatment. There is a rapid test for Flu. We already did a rapid COVID test, which was negative.

Do we need the ER?  I think not. I scheduled an appointment at the walk in, bugged out of work (with the work computer, of course. I can tap into the secure network there).  We waited about 2 hours, and the nurse who took us back immediately sized up the situation. She came back with the Flu swab, a strep throat swab, a viral panel swab and a COVID swab and had it all ready before the provider arrived, about another half hour later.

He was clearly harried. We saw the ambulance getting loaded up while we were waiting.  I know how badly that kind of sick ruins the day of the walk in provider. But still.

"Why are you here with just an ordinary cold? I mean, I know you had a transplant, but you should call your regular doctor and the nephrologist!" 

Dude. We made those calls. Nephrology called us back while we were waiting for him and told us what to do about whatever of the various diagnoses they came up with, and what over-the-counter stuff was safe for her.

I let him wallow around for a few minutes. Babygirl got so intimidated that when he asked her if she had any symptoms in addition to the fever she said, "No." Lordy.  I mean, not counting the cough, chills, body aches and the six gallons of snot she blew out of her head right in front of you, no, nothing.

I did my best to explain the Before Six Months vs After Six Months, as well as the overall concept of "immunocompromised." He had no way of knowing that about 2 years ago she went from "a little sick" to "almost didn't make it" in just a couple of days, but I filled him in.

To his credit, he took a step back, visibly reset his brain, and started over.

On exam her lungs sounded crappy, apparently. He didn't want to expose her to unnecessary radiation, explaining that bronchitis or pneumonia are going to get the same treatment. He asked if we had inhalers? A nebulizer? And he left the room to research which medications would be safe for her kidney. 

You should be proud of me. I got through the whole thing without saying a single ducking bad word. I never even let him know what I do for a living. 

On our way out, one of the receptionists hollered, "Have a good evening, Dr D!" so I guess I didn't actually need to tell him.

We stopped for dinner, and went back for the medications. She's doing a bit better today, thank you.

DeeDee

PS I ran into someone today who was working the ER yesterday. She said that at dinnertime there were 30 people in the waiting room, 20 people in the ER waiting for beds for admission, no empty rooms and overflow was full.  Walk in for the win!

Giving All Gratitude....

 It's barely noon, but it has been BUSY here.  Due to work and visitation schedules, we have 5 kids 4-13 here sans parents, some since Tuesday night, and some since 7:30 this morning. I've been up since 6:30 preparing a meal meant to be served at 12:30.  Since we blew a circuit breaker mid-turkey roast, there might be some delay.  All the kids have been helpful to some degree.  One grandson learned about piecrust. A granddaughter learned the value of a final recipe check: Pumpkin pie with no sugar would not have been a hit. It took two grandkids 20 minutes to search out the spices that were needed for that pie.  

I didn't peel any potatoes.  Babygirl didn't need to peel any apples.  For our sanity, they all went outdoors and scootered up and down the street.  

I'm grateful.  There are a large number of people locally who are without power due to a storm 2 days ago.  There are friends going through their first Thanksgiving without loved ones (Ana's kidney donor's family among them).  There are families who cannot get together. We are not all here, but we are enough. 

DeeDee

 

Medusa Under the Front Seat....

 When was the last time you had a dream that you remembered?

It's been years for me, until last night. 

I'm recovering from a cold, and I've been waking up coughing almost every night for almost a week.  To be honest, I had 2 glasses of wine. I went to bed and crashed at about 7:30 PM.

Then: The Dream.

It started with me looking into a vehicle. The seats had been removed, and on the floor where the driver's seat would have been there were...snakes.  A nest of about 10 pretty big snakes.  They weren't particularly threatening looking, but...snakes.

Somehow, there was a little stripey kitten.  And a snakebite.  And then a toddler. And a snakebite.  

The story unfolded all night long. I got up to go to the bathroom at least twice, and went right back into the dream. 

The kitty got pretty sick.  She lost her left front leg.

The toddler got sick. Apparently a fang punctured a lung, but the baby got better with a chest tube.  

I have no idea what happened to the snakes. I do remember reviewing a picture I took of them with a snake expert and determining that none of them were venomous. Just so you know:  There is no picture. 

There was entirely nothing nightmare-ish about any of this.

When I woke up the sun was already up and it was after 6 AM. I apparently spent over 10 hours dreaming about...snakes. 

What. The. Duck.

DeeDee

PS It is probably the best news in the world that I have nothing else to talk about.

Quick General Update....

 Yesterday's Rochester Run was, thankfully, uneventful.  Her labs are stable, and they are again decreasing one of her transplant medications.  She's been flipped from the medication that looks like bright yellow finger pain to a pill.  Antivirals have been gone for few weeks.

No trip is complete without a walk, a restaurant, and music and conversation.  All of it was interesting, fun, and relaxing.

Next visit: TWO months.

DeeDee