1. At about 8:30 this morning, Nurse Sheri called me from Providence Sacred Heart to congratulate me that the transplant committee had decided to put me on their active transplant list. A few things remain for me to do. The program will send me a packet of paperwork and it will set in motion the transfer of my time on the University of Maryland's list to Sacred Heart. I can also decide to remove myself from Maryland's list and to be listed only at Sacred Heart.
In addition, the committee wants me to submit to a cardiac stress test.
Lastly, the blood work I had done in October revealed that I am not immune to Hepatitis B. I will need to be vaccinated with the Hepatitis B antigen, a three shot series.
When? This is up in the air right now. If I were to be vaccinated before a transplant, it's possible the vaccine would mess up my pre-transplant blood work. Therefore, it's likely that I would be vaccinated post-transplant.
My response to this news is mixed. I would, on the one hand, prefer to go into the transplant with this immunization taken care of. But, I understand that in April I will have been listed for four years and that the likelihood of a kidney coming available and it being my time for transplant is increasing. If that happened, and if I accepted the organ, I would hate to have the possible transplant messed up by having recently been immunized.
I am relieved to be listed at Providence Sacred Heart in Spokane. Nothing in this process over the last four months led me to believe my being listed was in jeopardy. Nonetheless, having been listed relieves me of the possibility of having to travel, on short notice, to Baltimore for a transplant and having to figure out post-transplant care back east.
2. Byrdman and I decided to brave the icy roads of the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River and pay a visit to the Country Lane River Resort to enjoy a couple of beers and shoot the breeze with L E and Amy. After we'd been there a while, a River Resort regular whose name is pronounced RAWN BOE joined us and regaled us with stories about living a bunch of different places from Boston to Kingson, ID and told us some really bad jokes. L E told us about hopes the resort has for live music this spring and summer with the possibility of hosting bluegrass music and invited us to think about coming up for a future bar collectibles sale and a volunteer clean up weekend.
3. Back home, at about 3:30, I tuned into St. John's basketball game against Xavier. Being a Johnnie's fan, I never know if the good Johnnies or the bad Johnnies will show up, game to game. Today, the decidedly bad Johnnies showed up. St. John's looked sluggish while Xavier looked very motivated and quick. From the get go, Xavier scored from inside and out, established a lead almost immediately, totally outplayed St. John's, and pretty much coasted to a 84-73 victory.
By the time the Zags were going to come on television at 8:00, I was ready for bed. I didn't go over to Christy and Everett's to watch the Zags defeat Pacific 86-66. Instead, I fell asleep listening to an On the Media podcast, trying to understand Twitch.tv and the popularity of games, like Fortnite, it streams to millions of active users day to day.
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