1. Copper usually starts meowing about 3:30 a.m. He wakes me up. When this happened this morning, I could feel a tickle in my throat. It was sore. I coughed and it was a raspy cough. I could tell that, at the very least, I was coming down with a cold.
Copper eventually settled down, I went back to sleep, and I woke up around 5:45. I would drive Debbie to school this morning and was ready to start the day with a cup of coffee.The cold I felt coming on two and a half hours earlier hadn't gone away.
I didn't think much of this minor cold, but soon its emergence became critically important.
While I drove out to the Transfer Station to recycle cardboard, cans, and newspapers, I got a call, but I missed it because I left my phone at home.
The caller, it turned out, also texted me.
It was Karina, a nurse for Arrowhead Nursing, a company that calls prospective kidney transplant recipients when there's a match.
Yes, that's right.
A donor had died and his kidney looked like a match for me.
Immediately Karina told me I was a backup candidate, that three people would be/had been offered the organ ahead of, meaning that my chances of receiving the organ could be slim.
Turns out, though, it didn't matter.
Karina asked me about my health today and I told her I had caught a minor cold.
"Then we'll have to pass on you. If you go into this surgery with even a small cold, once your immune system is lowered so you won't reject the kidney, that cold could go crazy."
I replied, "Is that it? Are we done?"
"Yes, I'm afraid we are. Please be sure to call your transplant nurse next week and update her on the progress of your cold."
It was all cordial. And I'll follow up with the phone call next week.
Oh! By the way, had the others not accepted (or not been able to accept) the organ, my surgery would have been tonight -- Friday night.
Things would have moved along rapidly.
2. I got off the phone, sighed, gathered myself, and thought, "Hmmm. I guess I'll go up to the Shoshone Medical Center and have my monthly blood draw done for the lab in Spokane that serves the transplant program.
So I did.
And, as it turned out, the phlebotomist who drew my blood was Carol and Paul's good friend Stephanie and we yakked a little bit about next weekend's wedding and, not incidentally, about kidneys and transplants.
3. I picked up Debbie at school and we scooted on into Coeur d'Alene where she met a 4:00 appointment and I went to Costco and Pilgrim's to shop for some groceries.
We blasted right back to Kellogg after Debbie's appointment and enjoyed a relaxed hour or so at The Lounge. It was hoppin'. I enjoyed a single cup of brandy and hot water, yakked with Ed when he came in, and marveled at all the people who were in The Lounge tonight and what a positive and relaxed vibe filled the room.
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