Do You Realize?

A Tuesday Ten--Family Stampede Edition

I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but my family is coming out to Texas. Remember them? They will all be here, PLUS my aunt (Hey, Mimi! ) and my two rambunctious cousins, along with my dad's mother. Nine people. For almost a week. They'll be here tomorrow in time for dinner, I'm hoping. There's still a lot to do to get ready for them, especially my mom, who has special needs post-transplant. So today, to help me clarify things for myself, here are ten things I still need to do to prepare for my family's arrival:

1. Go to Whole Foods. Lots of fruit is on the agenda. And a water filter; there will be no bottled water, except Sigg bottles of our water.

2. Take the cockatiel to the vet's office and move the finch to our upstairs bathroom. My mom can't be around birds post-transplant. They stir up dust and potentially carry parasites that my mom doesn't need to be exposed to. I think my kids do, too; I wonder if the vet will take them, too?

3. Change the air filters on the air conditioners & vacuum. Sneeze less.

4. Visit Poogan in the hospital today. She will probably come home tomorrow, looking so fantastically like a Frankendoggie. I'm telling my little cousins and niece that she was being too loud and running around too much, so we cut off her leg; now sit down and SHHHHHHHH!

5. Finish shoving shit in the coat closet cleaning the downstairs. Clean the downstairs bathroom.

6. Mop floors. Obsess over a more efficient way to clean floors. If you're sticking the mop back into the dirty mop water, aren't you just swirling the dirt around on the floors?

7. Mow the lawn. Get some Agent Orange and kill this fucking nutsedge that's attacking my yard & gardens.

8. Move a different television set out to the outdoor bar. We're spending a lot of time out back, especially now that it's pretty. The other one isn't digital & we haven't cleaned behind it since we've lived here, and so to kill two birds with one stone, we took it out; I cleaned behind it, and we're replacing it with one of the kids' digital ones.

9. Plan the party we're having with our friends and family this weekend. Take a Xanax while thinking about almost twenty extra people in my house, smelling the ferrets (Oh! Clean the ferret cage is on the list, too!), inspecting my never-too-perfectly-mopped floors, noticing the dust I missed... yeah, okay, I know, they aren't really actually furrealz doing all that shit, but they are doing it in my freaking head, okay?!?!?

10. Did I mention take a Xanax?

Thirteen Things...

...that I'm thinkin' 'bout on Thursday...

1. ...winners from my Blogiversary Giveaways! Congrats to Jeff at Biking Duluth (Greenies & Pet Promise dog food sample), Caroline in NH at Fiber Arts & Furry Critters (Bush's Last Day keychain), Hootin' Anni (CD of ten of my photographic images), Andree at Meeyau (Feline Greenies & Pet Promise cat food sample), Molly at RedMolly Picayune-Democrat (a copy of Diane MacEachern's book Big Green Purse), and Anonymous Mom at Tenuous at Best (handcrafted journal)! If I don't hear from each of you within 24 hours, I will contact you. I'm asking until next Saturday (hopefully won't need that long) to get everything ready to ship.

2. ...my complete and utter domination at the art of oatmeal. I have mastered my "perfect oats." No extra liquid, but not too dry either. MMMMM.

3. ...philosophical subjects like evil and faith. I've determined that the basis for one's faith in an idea or entity is a positive and memorable event that the person attributes, whether correctly or incorrectly, to that idea or entity. For example, my husband sees, on a regular basis, the healing and saving of lives. He attributes that to the science of medicine; his faith, therefore, lies in the scientific.

4. ...suicide. Not mine, no. The book I'm reading, Jodi Picoult's The Pact, is about a failed teen suicide pact, where the surviving teen is charged with murder.

5. ...how terrible I am at poker. Some friends of ours have bought a table at a local "Casino Night" fundraiser and have graciously asked Hubby & I to go. I know not a damn thing about poker, but I will throw down with the best of them when intoxicated, I'm sure.

6. ...Texas's crazy caucusing. We voted early to avoid voting day crowds, but then had to go out anyway for the caucusing portion of the night.

7. ...how terrifyingly easy it is to imagine Youngest as a drug addict. He has a very addictive personality anyway, and a bipolar individual's risk of addiction to drugs or alcohol is much higher than that of a normally functioning person. At thirteen, his drug of choice is Runescape or the Playstation 3; he will do anything, self-destructive or otherwise, to get his fix. Seeing his desperation while in Austin last weekend with limited Internet availability was truly amazing.

8. ...our freakish weather. It's snowing again. Hard. Remember, I was talking about the weather yesterday?

9. ...how hitting an already-dead, but still fresh, skunk on the highway is very, very bad. Very bad, indeed. I also discovered why so many of them seem to be hit on the road. Nearly impossible to see until the last minute. Poor buggers.

10. ...organ donation. My mom is down in Florida at a post-transplant checkup. She's doing amazingly well!

11. ...photography. I mentioned it's snowing again, right?

12. ...the Project Runway season finale last night. As I fully expected, Christian kicked ass. His clothes, while not designed for the everyday woman, were exquisite concoctions, full of ruffles and feathers. His runway music killed, too (created and arranged by Anonymous Mom's not-so-anonymous talented son). Way to go, Christian! I just want to eat him up like a cookie, he's so freakin' cute.

13. ...how I SO don't want to do the laundry and mop the floors.

Edited to add: I drove for six hours to accomplish what would usually take three.

Science(ish) Friday (and where I've been)

Sometimes (okay, most of the time) all I want is for life just to slow down a little (or a lot). This past week or so has been no exception. This week:

*My mom suffered a bout of acute rejection. Not unusual for a liver transplant patient, but not a good thing, either. After four (five?) days of intense prednisone and anti-rejection drug therapy, her biopsy yesterday finally came back to say the rejection had reversed. Whew!

*We found out Youngest has to have mastoid surgery for a cholesteotoma this Tuesday. He has had to be hospitalized for mastoiditis once before, so it's not a complete surprise. Before a lot of antibiotics were discovered, mastoiditis was pretty common, and death was an unfortunate side effect.

*My precious babykitty Gilda has to have yet another ultrasound to determine whether she has some sort of intestinal cancer or not.

*We found out Eldest's boyfriend (who went away to college this year) has been lying to her (and us) about his partying and drinking for months now.

*I found my first major scratch on Pru.

Now that I have all that off my chest, let me tell you about one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time: National Geographic's Genographic Project.

For $100.00, you can get a kit to send in a buccal swab. National Geographic will test your mitochondrial DNA (or, if you're male, you could also choose to have your Y-chromosome DNA tested instead). They will trace your DNA to its origins in Africa and provide you with a map of the migratory patterns that your ancestors took, which landed you where you are today. Quite a fascinating concept, in my opinion. (My friend RedMolly does this science thing a whole heckuva lot better than I do, but I did want to make a mention of it.)

Photo Hunt Saturday--Classic

In honor of my mommy, who just got her new liver. These photos were taken in July 2006 with our doggies. They are classic examples of my mom's loving nature; no one deserves a new lease on life as much as she does!

For those who don't know, or who want more details, my mom has (had?) an auto-immune disorder called Primary Biliary Cirrhosis (a misleading name, as cirrhosis is the final stage of the disease and comprises only a tiny portion of the complications). Her body was literally attacking and killing her own liver. She was diagnosed in 1991. She recently spent 15 days at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, having a myriad of tests to finally be put on the Organ Transplant List. She was put at the top of the list due to a newly developed pulmonary problem, but they still expected a wait of 2-6 months. After only 12 days on the actual list, her liver came. That is an amazingly fast procurement! Her transplant lasted about 5 hours, and she is doing very well; the surgeon said he couldn't have ordered a better-matched liver.

So, sign those Organ Donor cards, and tell your family; it really does make the difference between life or death for someone else out there! Here's to you, Mom!

Organ Donors Are Better Livers

... and a new liver is exactly what we're getting! Less than two weeks after being put on the Organ Transplant List (and less than an hour after my sister's flight landed here in Dallas), my mom got "The Call" at 3:40 this afternoon. That was SO fast! My sister handed the phone to me & said, "See if she's serious. I can't tell." LOL!

So, she and my dad are at the hospital right now. Surgery is in about 30 minutes. It can take anywhere from 3-12 hours. So, we wait some more. And do a happy dance.

Keep us in your thoughts!

Bittersweet

One of the most difficult things I've ever had to experience in life is being overjoyed and excited for one child and being devastated and worried senseless for another. This past week and a half or so, that's exactly what I've had to do.

Youngest, as I mentioned briefly, had to be admitted to the adolescent psychiatric facility at Presbyterian Hospital, an hour away. He remained an Inpatient from Thursday until Tuesday. Visitation and "parent education" began at 7:30 a.m. weekdays, a little later on weekends. We had various family group therapies, psychosocial history, etc. to attend as well. Moving to Outpatient status brought more challenges. Day Treatment begins at 7:15 a.m. which means we leave at 6:00 a.m., and if you have never tried to wake up a child with Bipolar Disorder, you wouldn't know that they often have sleep disturbances and sleep inertia, which means, basically, he is nigh impossible to get going in the morning, much more so than you or I. His day ends at 5:15 p.m., when he comes home with goals and paperwork to discuss. We've made a Home Contract to address safety issues and situational behaviors he needs to work on. He's having to learn verbal and facial cues from scratch, pretty much, and communication and coping skills. It's a lot for the little guy; he is one of the youngest (one other had just turned thirteen, still older) there, and the only one with Bipolar Disorder.

On the other hand, Eldest is having an amazing Senior year with the Colorguard. Yesterday was their UIL Area Marching Competition. Twenty bands competed for four entries into the UIL State Marching Competition in San Antonio at the Alamo Dome. Our band marched away with First Place!!! They were incredible on the field! And, best of all, Eldest has a small solo during the show! So next week, we're off to San Antonio for three days. My sister is flying in that weekend, and she'll stay longer now.

My mom & dad have "relocated" to Jacksonville, Florida, to be nearer the Mayo Clinic while awaiting her new liver. They have to stay within 4 hours of Jacksonville. Her new condition has put her close to the top of the list, and they anticipate between 2 - 6 months to receive her transplant. So we wait. It feels strange, waiting for someone to die in order for my mother to live.

All in all, it's been an exhausting, emotionally wrenching week, but one that has made me stronger and smarter as well.

Coming up for air...

How horrible that I haven't been able to squeeze in a post at all in the past few days. Wanna know why? Goodie... what follows is a lesson in how organ transplantation (specifically liver transplantation) works.

My mom has had an autoimmune disorder since 1991 called Primary Biliary Cirrhosis. The short explanation is that her body is attacking its own liver. A couple of weeks ago, my sister went down to Jacksonville, Florida, with her to the Mayo clinic for evaluation for the transplant list. My mom has been on the cusp of eligibility for years now.

After having been poked, prodded, photographed, irradiated, and all other manner of invasion (they ARE thorough), she also had to go to a transplant psychiatrist, financial counselor, support meetings, and meet her actual transplant surgeon, should she go on the list. Once all the doctors involved in her care over those 9 or 10 days signed off on her being ready for the list, then they actually had to present her case to a transplant committee, who has the final say so.

Anyhoo, being that while she was there, they found she had hepatopulmonary syndrome, typical in end-stage liver failure, she was placed on the list, pretty close to the top, just under the "imminently dying" patients. She will have to relocate to Jacksonville within the next two weeks. And wait.

So, between all the long-distance familial drama and the in-my-face-daily familial drama, some days it's all I can do to get through the day without forgetting to put on pants. I really am hoping that I get to settle down soon, because I miss the blog. When I get back, it may take a few subject twists & turns, but that's okay, since there are quite a few of my fellow bloggers who do such a good job covering the green issues, I think it frees me up to do other stuff.

No links today... if you're interested in any of what I've said, Google it all... I have a football game to attend. SO not what I had in mind for a Friday night... SIGH!