… and Terry’s kidney is absolutely fine, nothing to see here, move along please and all that jazz. All of the blood results were in the “best they could possibly be” range, and now that’s been confirmed I can go ahead and admit that I? Was totally freaked out by yesterday’s test. Not that I really thought there was anything wrong with Terry, I hasten to add: this is a man who takes eight gym classes a week and goes rock climbing on the weekends, so it was pretty clear he was in fighting form, but… it was the date. The date worried me. The universe, you see, has a funny way of messing with me, and making sure that what SHOULD be happy dates in my life become memorable for all the wrong reasons.
For instance:
December 15, 2003 – Terry and I get engaged. Whoopee!
December 15, 2005 – Terry has a kidney transplant. Damn.
And, OK, the transplant was technically a “good” thing. But it’s all relative, isn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t such a good day compared to, say, all of those days in our lives when Terry HADN’T needed a transplant. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that getting a transplant you badly need = good, actually needing a transplant in the first place = a bit of a bummer, to be honest. Could’ve totally lived without that one, thanks all the same, Universe.
(December 15th is also Terry’s “Name Day” in Greece, but that has no real relevance to this story. Just thought I’d throw it in for good measure, though.)
But it doesn’t stop there. For instance:
Boxing Day 2003 = the day Terry was diagnosed with end stage kidney failure, and a little bit of my sanity shattered forever.
Christmas Day 2005 = the day he got out of hospital.
Again, getting out of hospital is clearly a good thing. But what would’ve been even BETTER would’ve been if he’d never actually had to be in there in the first place. See?
Anyway, this strange habit of us spending meaningful or important days in our lives in hospitals has made me a little bit superstitious. I should say here that I’m not normally superstitious in the slightest - show me a ladder, and I will happily walk under it (something will probably fall on me, mind you, but that’s just par for the course with me) – but in respect of what we’ve come to call “That whole weird thing with the dates”, I will admit to just a smidge of superstition.
Which is why, when Terry and I had the following conversation a couple of months ago, I was left feeling ever so slightly concerned:
TERRY: I got my next appointment in for the transplant clinic. It’s for March 10th.
ME: But! But! That’s my birthday! OMG, That Whole Weird Thing With the Dates will happen again!
Two days later…
TERRY: So, I called the hospital and asked them to change the date of my appointment.
ME: Oh, you didn’t need to do that. [Thinks: you totally did, though] When did they move it to?
TERRY: March 31st
ME: So… they moved the appointment from my birthday to our wedding anniversary? Almost as if they are hell bent on doing the tests on a Significant Date?
TERRY: Oh. Yeah, I guess!
ME: We. Are. So. Screwed.
And so, while yesterday was a lovely day for us, and we were happy to be celebrating our 2nd anniversary (thanks for all the good wishes, by the way – much appreciated) there was also a small part of my brain that was, well, freaking the hell out, until the moment we got back from the restaurant and Terry checked the results online.
And all was well.
Whew.
Tagged kidney transplant, Terry
…Terry and I got married:
(Yes, that’s the same Forth Rail Bridge we visited this weekend. What can I say, clearly we have a thing about bridges…)
As with my birthday, and other anniversaries, the evidence of the passing of time always freaks me out a little. The wedding was such a great day, and I seriously can’t believe it’s been two years already. How time flies. And never again will I walk through the streets of South Queensferry dressed like a Princess…
Well, I mean, I probably won’t. You never really know with me, though, do you?
(Yes, those are Terry’s shoes in his hands. Handy hint there for anyone thinking of getting married: BREAK IN YOUR SHOES BEFORE THE WEDDING. I certainly did.)
Today Terry will be celebrating by visiting the hospital, where he’ll have blood taken as part of his regularly scheduled “Let’s make sure the kidney is still working” tests. That’s just to stop us getting too smug/complacent, you know? After that, we’ll be going here for dinner, and will raise a glass to the past two happy years, and cross our fingers that there’ll be many more to come. Naturally, I have a new dress to wear for the occasion. This time, though, it’s definitely not by Vera Wang…
Tagged anniversary, kidney transplant, Wedding
We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here in the UK, obviously, but today we’re celebrating anyway, because as well as being Thanksgiving, today is also the day we got the results back from Terry’s latest round of blood tests.
This something we go through four times per year – something everyone with a transplant has to go through at regular intervals, in order to make sure everything’s still working the way it should. I don’t generally write about these tests here, because they’ve become part of our lives, but they’re something we have to live with – that particular brand of hell that is waiting for the results of medical tests to confirm to you that your life isn’t about to be torn apart once more.
That fear, of course, isn’t just a four-times-per-year thing, either. It’s something we live with every single day in life, and will have to live with forever, barring medical miracles. Had those tests come back today saying there was something wrong, there would’ve been no sunshine holiday for us, no happy Christmas: our lives would have, quite literally, changed overnight. We know this because it’s happened before.
So it’s not an easy thing to go through, this waiting. No matter how certain you are that everything’s OK, it’s hard to silence the “what ifs?” that whisper to you late at night that your life might once again be about to change.
It isn’t, though. The results that came back today were the best they’ve ever been – probably due to the fact that Terry’s worked hard these past few months to lose some weight and get fit. He’s probably healthier now than he’s been in years, and that’s quite an achievement when you consider that he’s a transplant recipient. The doctor described him as “the poster boy for transplants”. God, you all really want a new kidney now, don’t you?
So today I am thankful. I’m thankful that our lives get to remain the same. And, of course, I’m thankful to John, Terry’s brother and kidney donor, for saving them.
Tagged kidney transplant, Terry
The more observant among you may have noticed that I haven’t exactly been on the ball with the ole blog-posting lately, and this is because it’s turning out to be a very long December indeed. Why is it, I wonder, that so many people choose the week before Christmas to embark upon complex new projects, which mostly revolve around sending me emails and asking me to, you know, do stuff? Why can they not just let me wind down gently, and sit around the house eating the chocolate from my advent calender and drinking the wine Terry bought for that party we’re going to on Saturday? WHY? And is is STILL not Christmas yet? Seriously? Because, I don’t know about you, but I am DONE with this whole “not yet being Christmas” thing. This time next week I’ll be passed out on the sofa, having eaten more food than I normally eat in a week and IT CANNOT COME FAST ENOUGH, is all I can say.
Yeah. I had no idea I was going to write all of that. What I meant to do was post more pictures because, well, it’s easier than writing actual words. Shut up. Anyway, here they are, the pictures I meant to post on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 – or “T-Day” as it’s known in our house – Transplant Day.
December 15th, 2003: This is the exact spot at the Grand Canyon where Terry and I got engaged.
December 15th, 2005 – Just a few of the pills Terry had to take weekly after his transplant – and I really mean “a few” – there were lots more back at the start. This picture wasn’t actually taken on T-Day itself, because, funnily enough, I didn’t have my camera with me that day. Terry has often asked me why this was, and my answer has always been: “Are you on crack, Terry?” Actually, the reason for the lack of photographic evidence of T-Day is explained by my total phobia of hospitals, illness and operations, and, of course, the fact that it was major surgery. And was SCARY. Just not really the kind of thing you feel like photographing, y’know?
T-Day 2007 passed far less eventfully than its predecessors, anyway. I spent it lolling around in bed, for the most part, enjoying a rare few hours when I didn’t have to work, and Terry spent it playing short tennis, which I guess is a good sign of how far we’ve come. (Not the me-lying-in-bed-until-noon bit, obviously. Because that’s just exactly the same as ever it was).
Anyway: happy belated T-Day Terry, John and the kidney you share. If you could pretend that you read this on the actual anniversary of the transplant, that would be great…
Tagged kidney transplant
… and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last…
Every December I make it my mission to quote the Counting Crows’ Long December at least once. Sometimes I quote it twice, and last year? At least three times – and not just because I was particularly bad at titling my blog posts last year, either (although that was also the case). Last December was a particularly long one, filled, as it was with “the smell of hospitals in winter/ and the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters with no pearls”. Last year, though, was also the first time that the hope expressed in that song (which I can now hardly listen to, by the way), actually came true. This year actually was better than the last, and it’s all because of the events of December 15th, 2005: T-Day.
Today is the one year anniversary of Terry’s transplant. It’s the three year anniversary of our engagement. It’s Terry’s Name Day, in Greece. (It’s also the day Dylan and Sky got engaged in Neighbours, but honestly? I don’t think that’s going to last, personally.). A big, important day, then. A T-Day, if you will. This time last year, Terry was still in theatre (that’s the operating theatre, by the way – he wasn’t treading the boards), and I was still sitting in the reception of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, staring at that scuffed bit on the toe of my boot and hoping I wouldn’t throw up. (Note to self: get boots fixed, because, seriously, Amber, that’s been a YEAR now already…) I think I said everything I need to say about this on the six month anniversary of T-Day, and, really, there’s only so many ways you can say “God, I’m glad that’s over with!” But I am. Very, very glad – and I’m glad, too, that, rather than being the year of hospital visits that I thought it would be, this year has actually been very much like “normal” life, resumed.
Happy T-Day, Terry. Don’t order the steak when I take you to dinner tonight to celebrate…
Tagged kidney transplant
You may not realise it, but June 15th is a special day, people. Spechul. For one, it is my dad’s birthday, so yay, Happy Birthday, dad! For two, it’s the day my car goes in for its annual MOT, and I get to spend several hours totally crapping myself as I wait to find out just what the damage will be this time. It’s also the day that I bought gold shoes I really can’t afford but hey, we don’t talk about that…
In addition to all of this, however, June 15 also marks the 6 month anniversary of T-Day: the day Terry’s brother John gave him the kidney we now call “JK” (John’s Kidney. Clever, no? You can tell I’m not a writer for nothing!) and normal life – or as close to normal as you ever get when you’re The Girl Who Fell Off Her Bike Twice in 30 seconds – resumed.
Wow.
Six months. Who woulda thunk it? Six months ago today I was sitting in the reception area of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, staring at the scuffed bit on the toe of my boot, and thinking that this moment – this horrible, horrible moment – would never end. It felt like it would last forever. It felt like that moment would just stretch out into infinity and I’d be left sitting there, waiting and fearing the worst for the rest of my life. There’s nothing focuses the mind quite like major surgery, let me tell you.
Six months on, and the thing that amazes me most is how quickly I stopped thinking about it. For maybe three or four weeks I’d wake up on dialysis mornings and remember with a jolt that dialysis was no longer part of our lives. Only three or four weeks to wipe out two years of habit, and after that the “new life” we’d been looking forward to became simply “life”, and things were back to normal. Just like that.
It took much longer to shake that feeling of being somehow “other” that we’d carried around with us for two years. To be able to go out for dinner with friends, or bump into acquaintances, and not see that look of pity cross their faces as they asked how we were, and was there any news about the transplant? It took a while to feel that we were truly back to “normal”. Even now I’ll be out walking the dog, or filling up the car, or mowing the lawn, and I’ll be suddenly filled with this feeling of inexplicable joy. It always takes me a few seconds to identify just what it is, and why I’m feeling it, and then it will hit me: this is what “normal” feels like. This is how people feel when there’s nothing in particular to worry about. Wow, again.
I never want that feeling to go away. Six months ago today, I sat on that chair in the hospital reception area, and while I made all of those deals with a God I don’t believe in, the main thought going through my mind was that if you just let this work out OK I will never take normality for granted ever again. Because this “normality”? It terrifies me. More, even than the MOT thing. (The MOT was fine, by the way. A clean bill of health.) It’s a pretty fragile normality. It feels like it could fall and shatter at any second, and I’ve always said, there’s nothing more terrifying than hope.
I hope that this first six months is just the start of many more months of normality. I hope I get to feel that burst of “hey! There’s nothing wrong right now!” happiness at least a few more times before we’re done. I hope I never forget what December 15th, 2005 felt like – and how much better things are six months on.
Tags:
kidney transplant
Tagged kidney transplant
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