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[lalliw]

A Little Whining

I’m feeling a bit down today. Spring is here, which is awesome. My knee is healing pretty well… but somehow I ended up with a deep pressure sore on my heel in the hospital. So even though I should be able to be working on physical therapy for my knee, I can’t because I can’t put any weight on my heel. CAN’T ANYTHING JUST WORK????? The knee isn’t too sore, but the muscles in my shin and calf are—-…

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[lalliw]

This has been a really nice day!

This has been a really nice day!

We are bad with traditions around here, but we do seem somewhat better when there are food related holidays. So Pi day is one that we have done relatively well with. Luke did a key lime pie, Jodi and Beckett did a peanut butter, and I made a Frozen Chocolate Velvet Pie that my mom made once for a dinner party and remember thinking was the most amazing thing ever. Now, I realize it’s basically a…

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[lalliw]

I’m Sorry If I Spammed You

I did something today that felt very risky, which is a big deal. I am not a risk taker!!What’s funny about it is that it’s probably something many of you do often without thinking about it: I emailed practically everyone in my contacts list.

This felt scary for many reasons: 1) I try not to spam people. 2) I want to make sure I am distributing good information to people and not contributing…

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[lalliw]

House Hunting

I’ve been thinking a lot about how, when I was little, I was obsessed with moving. It seemed so exotic, I think. Friends in elementary school disappeared over the summer. Some just moved to different parts of the same city. I don’t think I thought about what kind of house we would live in, just that it would be different. New. Exciting.

My parents were not on board with this plan. They had…

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[lalliw]

For Sale

Finally, today our housewent on the market. It has been a much more complicated ordeal than we were expecting. I’m not sure exactly why this is true— it’s not like anything ever goes as planned. Still. We moved out of our house on June 23rd, expecting to put our house on the market July 7. Those of you with a background in math can probably tell this is a month later than we planned. We were so…

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[lalliw]

Suddenly, We Have A Lot Going On

Have you heard the joke (or maybe not a joke) about the number of people getting quarantine divorces because they realize they can’t stand their significant other 24/7? I’m curious how many people are addressing their housing shortcomings by moving? Because apparently that’s what we’re doing!!

It wasn’t strictly a quarantine decision. The boys are getting to the ages where having their own…

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[lalliw]

Hello from the Quarantine!

I kind of keep putting off writing about life in quarantine because, in some ways, I’ve been quarantined ever since all of my health issues came home to roost. The only difference now is that there are 5 other people here with me every day.  And our house feels really small! Hasan is holed up in our bedroom working from home.  We are so lucky that he has a steady job and the ability to work from…

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[lalliw]

Well Hello, and Happy 2020!

Yes, I’m still alive and kicking, and maybe I can at least manage a blog post a month this year. Oh such lofty goals!

So, not too much has been going on. I’ve been going to both Swedish and UW to talk kidney transplant (if you’re feeling super selfless and want to be tested to be a donor, let me know!). I’ve done a lot of the preliminary testing, but the PET scan I took in November showed…

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[lalliw]

Today, I Went Shopping

I know; big deal. But I have avoided going to the mall for almost three years! Thinking about going out with my walker is always a big deterrent for me. It’s cumbersome to get in and out of the car. I get tired really easily (note to self: start working on stamina again). I feel like I automatically age 30 years when I use it. I haven’t been in a grocery store, or Target, (Oh! Target!) or…

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[lalliw]

I’m A Lucky Girl

And yes, I’m a feminist but somehow still like to refer to myself as a girl. And yes, I will be 50 soon. Quirky, that’s me😊. But you know, I talk a lot lately about all the bad things healthwise I’ve been going through this year, and without a doubt 2019 deserves a do-over, but still, I tell Hasan how lucky we are.

Five years ago he gave me such a great gift- the ability to spend time with my…

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[lalliw]

Uncertainty

“There’s a tunnel I’d like to explore there.”

That’s a great observation if you’re talking to a spelunker. That is not such a great observation when the wound nurse is looking at your abdominal wound, which even after my weekly trips to the Swedish Wound clinic is not getting better. In fact, it’s getting bigger, and the pain is so bad I’m back in the hospital. And apparently, something is making…

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[lalliw]

All or nothing

All or nothing used to rule my life when I was constantly dieting. Either I ate the whole package of Oreos or none of them. Either I was eating pretty perfectly or would start again tomorrow. Through a lot of therapy and antidepressants I had left that behavior behind several years ago.

Unfortunately 2019 has been one big slide into all or nothing, culminating in me being practically bedridden at…

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[lalliw]

Why are you here?

I suppose maybe I should be flattered when the nurses ask me that question. Like “you look so healthy, we can’t believe you need to be here.” And yet it appears that I will be holding down this bed for at least several more days.

I mentioned earlierthat I ended up being admitted to Swedish a couple of weeks ago because the biopsy site on my abdomen had some weird cultures they wanted to examine…

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[lalliw]

Dialysis, a reintroduction

There’s a reason I’m reintroducing. I can’t tell this story without being thorough.

There are 2 kinds of dialysis: one is hemodialysis, which uses a big machine to suck blood out of your body, clean it, and push it back into your body. This is the type of dialysis about 80% of American kidney patients do. Usually people go to a center and nurses keep track of your weight, bp, temperature, and…

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[lalliw]

New year, old hospital drama

So I’m on the 11th floor of Swedish today, after spending 6 hours in the ER yesterday. (They seriously need to come with a different name than ER— nothing is treated like an emergency there.)

I’m here because the spot on my abdomen that they biopsied on the 20th has just kind of become a deeper and deeper crater and hasn’t been healing. So I went to UW on Wednesday to have them take a look at it.…

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[lalliw]

Passion

Today I’m thinking about what it is that makes people into advocates. Like those people who are diagnosed with a disease and then devote incredible amounts of time and energy and money into finding a cure for that disease. On the one hand, that seems like a perfectly obvious and normal response. But then on the other hand, you have people like me, who barely participate in things like multiple…

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[lalliw]

Musing on my kidneys

I’m not feeling great lately, emotionally or physically. For some reason everything I eat upsets my stomach. This has happened before but I don’t know what triggers it or what solves it. It’s exhausting to try and think of things to eat and most of the time I get by on about one meal a day. I know that’s not the healthiest thing, and it makes losing weight all the more daunting when I don’t feel…

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