Dealing w/ Chronic Kidney Disease with Crystal

Good morning, everyone. I hope you all are doing well today. I am doing good so far. Today is Palm Sunday. Every year, churches have palms to pass out and they sing "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna". This is not just a tradition, but also history. The truth of the matter is that I AM sad today. Thinking about Palm Sunday has also got me to thinking about the bible story about the people putting down coats and palms on the ground and welcoming Jesus. What about when He left? I would think the same could happen. You are probably wondering what this has to do with me, right? Put it this way. If you know me at all, you know that I feel deeply. Well, to put it bluntly, my best friends are leaving town and I am sad about that. They will be moving soon and I will really miss them. To top it all off, another dear friend will be leaving also. You know, sometimes it's easy to get over. But sometimes, it is not easy at all. And we have to come to grip with the harsh reality of friend

Good morning, everyone. I hope you all are doing well this bright and sunny morning. I am doing as well as I can be this early. I was just thinking about two dear friends from dialysis who departed from our world recently. This was one of the reasons why I wanted to blog this morning. These two men were quite a pair. One lived life to the fullest and the other was a very quiet gentleman. They made a mark in my life and I will miss them dearly. Here's to all of our departed friends in dialysis. The other reason for this early morning blog is to tell you about some important dates. These dates are important to me for obvious reasons. The first date is August 22, 2013. This is important beccause, for one, it's my brother's birthday. The other is that it is the first dialysis treatment date. The next one is May 15, 2014. A lot of you may already know, but this is the date that I got placed on the transplant list. Hard to believe that it will be two years soon. Wow! T

Good evening, everyone. I hope you all have had a great weekend. It has been a really busy one for me. I have had three dialysis treatments, three doctor appointments, five days' of work, a family gathering, and a full day trip to and from NC State as of this evening.  This has been the busiest week that I have had in a while. This is still by far almost the weekly normal for me, though. I am so glad to be able to rest right now. As I told Ashleigh, we are going to rest for the rest of the night. We did manage to get Jessica, my youngest daughter, back to college without any problems. All in all, the trip was a good one. Gotta go for now, fellow followers. Ci

Good evening, everyone. I hope that you have had a great weekend. With my weekend being pretty decent, the whole week has been busy as a bee. It has been a crazy month, though. I have been doing my dialysis, working every day, taking everyone to doctors, taking other family members to grocery store(s), and doing everything else at home. With everything going on with my husband (he has to have cataract surgery and has pre-parkinson's), I can't help but feel like I need some extra shoulders to lean on. I hope you all know that I try my best to be strong when I am around others. But when I am by myself, I tend to feel like I need someone else to be there and be strong for me. If I am not mistaken, we all have tendencies to be this way. But when someone is ill and still has to be a caregiver to others, it can take a toll on that person. You see, I am a caregiver to my oldest daughter and to my husband. I have been for a while now. But when I received that one phone call sever