Thursday, May 30, 2002  12:31 am  <|>
<142> Wake up while you're waiting: I guess I'm back to being a "blogger." I suppose it's been too long, especially for someone who was early in on the concept. I was doing a bit of thinking between last night and today. For the first time in a LONG time last night I just took a few hours to "surf" the web just because I could and because I had nothing better to do, etc. I get in these little moods at random I suppose (when I have the time that is) but I realized how much I missed doing it. Just exploring various sites, both "blog" types and experiment multimedia sites that I was quite impressed with. I added a couple links to my list for your enjoyment.

So my allergies really suck, welcome to New Jersey. Well, I had planned on being in the city most of the time when these allergies were kicking in, but alas that isn't possible right now. So I am left to suffer. They started last Monday and have been getting somewhat better with Claritin, especially the past two days I thought they were really going away but today sucks - nonstop coughing, lots of nose blowing, not fun. Just another thing to add to my plate I suppose, but hopefully the allergy gods will look down kindly on me and give me a break within the next couple of days or I don't know what I'm going to do. I had dialysis today, went okay pretty much as usual, cept for the constant coughing that was probably annoying to everyone around me just as much as it annoyed me personally. I only took a little nap after I got home. The last couple of times I was taking a 3-4 hour nap and wasting away the little bit left of my day, which tended to get annoying - not that I have an abundance of things that I must do on a daily basis, but still. I don't like wasting time, people who know me know that quite well. But it seems that is what I am facing a lot more of at least for a little while.

I also decided to publish a book finally. It's always been something I've wanted to do, so I thought a good place to start might be a book of my poetry. I don't know how good or bad my stuff really is, I've never really cared that much, it's one of those things I enjoy doing for myself more than anything else. I also don't care a great deal about making money off publishing a collection of it, though I wouldn't mind of course, it just seems like a cool thing to be able to have. I have most of the poetry part put together, plus the other little parts that need to go into a book, but I still gotta make a cover design and such. I want to work on that soon but it's really hard to make any good design without the use of a proper mouse. I am on my laptop here in NJ after all. So I may have to wait until later this week or something when I can either go back and spend a lot more time in Philly or at least go grab my mouse. I've really been missing my digital camera lately too. Not that there is a overly large amount of cool things to take pictures of here, but there are some things and at least it would give me something else to do. Maybe I'll get a chance to get that soon as well.

I am noticing the "mix" of response I get with this whole kidney failure thing. To some people it seems like it should be the end of the world and yet to others (like myself) I just see it as more of an annoyance, granted a big one that doesn't come without risks, but still that is what it is. It is not the end of world and I don't understand why some people take things like this as such. Ok, I don't mean to say I don't understand why they do, because I guess I can understand it, but I mean there is so much more to life. And with something like this people do go on with "normal" lives even before getting their transplants. I saw an interesting article posted up at dialysis today that I guess had been there by the waiting chairs ever since I'd been going, but it was behind one of the chairs so I guess I just never noticed it before. It was about a daughter who got a transplant from her mom basically the same day she found out she had kidney failure. Now she didn't lose her kidneys to Lupus (as I have to wait a few weeks or however long until my Lupus quiets down so it doesn't interfere further), but still it reminded me that this stuff can be taken care of quite quickly. Now I realize I have other issues and not everyone is lucky enough to have a living donor that can do it. Like for me, my mom wants to, she is a general match but they might not let her because of other health reasons. I don't know who else I could ask or who would even be a match, but I can tell you it's one of the top things on my mind constantly. I think that should be my priority, I'm just not totally sure how to go about it all yet. Anyway, this article was pretty interesting, it was only written at the beginning of this month, actually a few days before I went into the hospital. This mother and daughter were very active people; the mom was a coach, the daughter was on several sports teams etc... she was a junior in high school I think if I remember it right. Both of them were doing fine after the transplant it said and was written to praise my main doctor of my "team" actually, whom I am not totally sure about yet, but this article helped me realize I shouldn't be too overly quick to judge. My old doctor that went through the kidney involvement before with me I liked a lot, but he works and teachers in Louisiana now. I have been meaning to email him about all this actually, which perhaps I'll remember finally to do tomorrow.

So otherwise nothing much has been happening lately. In my catch up post yesterday I realized I didn't really have a chance to talk about anything else "random" like, so I wanted to make sure I did that tonight. It's already passed 1 AM, time loves to fly especially when half your day goes by like crazy anyhow. For now it's okay, but I can imagine getting sick of this routine pretty quickly. Plus I'm still supposed to be "taking it easy" - sitting online for hours sounds about right, it's not like I EVER do that right??