Keep Calm and Carry On

Just a Girl in a Fantasy World

2012-02-15T15:43:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I did something I've never done before, I went to a writing conference. And not just any writing conference, a fantasy fiction writing conference. Anybody who knows me and my preferred reading/writing genre knows this is not really my style or likeness at all. My friend Heather was going with a few friends and invited me as a way of getting me in contact with some local editors so hopefully one of them will take a chance on an unknown kid and give me a job as an editorial assistant (though Heather did tell me later she was really hoping to convert me to fantasy. Not going to happen!).

I'd been preparing myself for Life, The Universe, & Everything (or LTUE) and what I'd come across there. I was expecting a lot of nerds- obviously- and I wasn't disappointed. I was surprised to find a lot of Mormon moms there- some with their small children in tow, which I find annoying- and a few of whom were gushing over my new kate spade. There were a lot of famous writers I'd never heard of, a fully grown woman wearing a cookie monster hat, and plenty of self-aggrandising on the part of the attendees.

For the most part, the panels were useless to me as I don't write nor read fantasy/science fiction. By the end of Friday, after being at the conference in Utah County from 9 am to 7 pm, I found myself missing the comfort and non-judgemental familiarity of Salt Lake County. There were some good moments though, and one panel actually gave me a break through about my own inability to write my book in a pleasing manner.

We were in the "Writing Excuses" podcast panel, and one of the guests was a writer named Michael Brent Cummings. He spoke briefly about having lost a child, and how that experience has led him to be able to write about it in a believable manner now that he is out of the situation. That's when I realized why I can't write about my rejected kidney, finishing school on and living with dialysis- I'm still in the middle of the situation. I'm fairly certain I won't be able to write the book until after I've had a successful kidney transplant, and who knows when that's going to be. I guess I need another idea of what to write, and it's not going to be a fantasy novel.

Other good things: The keynote speaker as a guy named James Owens and he was fantastic. It was more of a motivational speech than "Look at how great and successful I've been in my career!" type of deal. What I really took from his address was this: Don't trade what you want most for what you want most at the moment. And I know this has been said a million times before, but he really drove it home with experiences and it seemed more poignant somehow this time around. (break) I went to a local publishers panel and learned the names of some people to contact about jobs in publishing. Just like for writers, local publishers can be a stepping stone to national ones for girls who just want to edit. (break) There was a panel called "Writers on Writing" with some cool guys (Dan Wells, Tracey Hickman, Dave Wolverton, Lee Modesitt, & Brandon Sanderson) who talked about the triumphs and struggles of being a writer. It was neat to hear a guy who's had a phenomenal writing career talk about how right now is the hardest point of his career. (break) Our hotel basically shared a parking lot with Krispy Kreme so we stopped and got a dozen on our way back from dinner. Chocolate glazed is the best.(break) I got the email address of an editor who might have something for me to do. All I have to do now is email her my resume.

It was an interesting weekend. I did not go to the panel about how to draw a dragon, or the one about creating languages, or the one about injecting romance into your ghost story, but I learned a few things and made a few friends and told a number of people that I did not go to school at UVU so no, I don't know where random building is, but since they all seem to be connected in one long hallway with classrooms on the side, just walk this way or that and you're bound to find what you're looking for. It's always interesting to see how the other half lives.

Things I Care Less About than Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T12:05:00.000-08:00

Any person, show, fragrance, clothing line, marriage containing one or more Kardashian
NHL pre, regular, or post season
NBA lockouts
The Twilight Saga
Any vampire media of any kind
Any movie Kristen Stewart is in
For that matter, Kristen Stewart
Sushi
Photos with sayings people post on facebook
The feud between Disney Channel stars
Rachel Ray
Jeremy Lin
Jimmer Fredette
Anything "Jimmer" related
The name "Jimmer"
The difference in smartphones
The difference in smartphone carriers
The difference in smartphone plans
The Office
MTV programming
Major League Baseball*
What someone's eating and whether or not it's "yummy"
Words that aren't words (see "Rachel Ray" above)
A moon colony run by Newt Gingrich
American Idol
Political support surveys
Ever traveling to India, Africa, Asia, or South America
New Years Eve
Twitter, who's "tweeting" what, and "trending topics"
News programs that use twitter as a reliable source
Any Fox News program
Chili
Recorded telephone solicitations
Veganism
What your sexual preference is**
Matt Barkley
People who act like gigantic tools
Shows that replace Community
and of course, Hugh Jackman***

* Go Sox!
** Just be a good person and I don't care who you love
*** I actually don't have a problem with Hugh Jackman, it's a Scrubs reference

I just don't understand why you need a special day with overpriced tokens of affection to tell someone you love them.

Dialysis Anniversary (& Stats!)

2012-02-01T11:16:00.000-08:00

Monday, January 30th, 2012, marked two years that I've been on dialysis. I remember this time last year I didn't think I could possibly be on dialysis this time this year, but clearly I was wrong. It's just like I said the first Christmas I was on dialysis, "If I'm on dialysis next Christmas, I'll kill myself." Well, I was, and I didn't. I just kept on surviving like I've done and will continue to do until the- what I feel is quite unlikely- transplant actually does happen. In honor of this 2 year mark, I'd like to present some stats. Please read them with a hip hop beat in the background, if only to make things more lively.

Years on dialysis: 2
Number of treatments: 312 (roughly)
Hours of treatment: 1092
Number of kilos of fluid removed from my blood: 1248 (roughly)
That number in pounds: 2745.6
Number of times I've had to pee since 2009: 0
Flying on airplanes never having to pee: Advantaage
Number of cities traveled to while on dialysis: 6
Best visiting dialysis clinic: The Kidney Center, Boston, Mass
Number of missed treatments: 0
Number of kidney related hospitalizations (in 2 years): 5
Number of dialysis related surgeries: 6
Number of current kidneys, working or non: 0
Number of stuffed kidneys with a face: 1
Number of months back at work while on dialysis: 20
Longest amount of time I've heard of someone being on dialysis: 31 years
Chances of me doing that: 0% chance

That is a lot of fluid when you visualize that number. When you think about it, it's pretty amazing that dialysis can sustain someone's life when they're missing a major organ. It's not ideal, obviously, but it works until I can get a kidney. And for me, it's certainly better than the alternative.

Boardwalk Empire

2012-01-23T10:31:00.000-08:00

I like to sit and watch the ocean. As the sun sets behind me, behind the plains, cities, and mountains of this country, it makes the sky it's leaving behind the most magnificent, almost soothing color. Like periwinkle, gray, and gold all mixed together in a meld of brilliance. On this boardwalk bench I sit, carnival sights sounds smells swirling around me from behind and to the left. Corn dogs and funnel cakes, ferris wheels and tilt-a-whirls, bells clanging and people jollying... it's a grand escape from the harsh reality of the real world. An over-sized tiger floats past me with balloons, the neon lights bright against the darkening midnight sky. I look back at the ocean, so steady, so firm, so dependable. Waves lap at the sand like a tongue reaching for a Tootsie Pop. All day, all night, lapping, licking, crashing into the beach; the sand stays, takes the beating, knows what's coming and refuses to leave. It becomes better, stronger, reliable with every tick. It knows it's place, it knows it's purpose and it accepts it. The ocean doesn't budge and neither do I. I am cemented to this bench, eyes fixed on the fading light in the sky and the darkening vastness of the Atlantic. Somewhere over the horizon I wonder if my fate is waiting for me. I wonder what my fate is, what it means for me and where it will take me one day. The steadiness of the breaking waves steadies me and my wandering mind. So often I feel lost, so often I feel alone- even when surrounded by people I feel alone sometimes. I'm missing what they all have and hope has slipped away at ever getting it for myself. So I feel lost and alone, unrelatable and unremarkable. My thoughts drift away like I'm lost in the ocean... what if I'd stayed at that small college I went to right out of high school, what if my kidneys hadn't failed the first time, or rejected the second time, what if I'd taken a chance on Joey, the boy I loved for such a long time? What if I'd really loved him like I wanted to? How would my life be different now? I'm brought back to the present by the blinking lights of a liner in the distance and I know it's no use. You can't change biology and that's what most of this boils down to, one way or another. It's funny how different the Atlantic is from the Pacific. It's a different experience to sit on a Pacific beach and watch the sunset. With a Pacific beach, you seem to always know what's coming. You know when the sun is gone because you see it dip below the water. You can watch a storm roll in from the West, turmoiling the water and changing the sky. You know it's coming, you can prepare, and then you can weather the storm and watch for the clear skies that always, eventually come after it. With an Atlantic sunset, you watch the light fade from the sky until it's gone, The storms take you by surprise as you stare into the east, waiting for the sun to come back, and you only know it's over when the clouds subside towards England, bringing the rain and gray to London. Until that time comes you can only hold your umbrella and wonder if the storm will ever end. Now as I sit, staring, wondering, waiting, the night rips the last bit of brilliance from the sunset behind me. With the light gone I feel hope has drained, though deep inside I know it's been gone for ages. As I've watched the ones I love come and go, marry and have children, move on and up, I seem to always stay the same. I don't know how to change it- as I've tried desperately my entire adult life- and I don't understand why it doesn't happen for me. The disappeared sun seems to have left a void, one I don't notice all the time but lately seems to be rearing its sad little head all too often and likens itself to the oddest metaphors when I write.Maybe the key is to not write. Maybe it's to move on and ultimately accept what life has handed me. The ocean, dark and black and vast now without the illumination of the sun, continues to wear at the sand. I think to my self, "I am lost, I am vain, I will never be the same without you" as I close my eyes and listen to the carnival behind me and to the left. And I know, I will never be the same without you, whoever you are.

To see what I mean click here

Paris est la plus Belle sous la Pluie

2012-01-18T18:52:00.000-08:00

Mon ceour pleure pour Paris. Lalumière, la ville, la romance, la culture... je voudrais aller Paris tellementaffreusement mais je besoin de une greffe de rein premier. Avec un soupier.

I've never been to Paris. I've stared across the English Channel at where I imagine it is, but grey rough water was really all I could see. I've never stepped foot onto French soil, never revered the hallowed beaches at Normandy, or grazed wildflowers with my hand on a walk through the countryside. I've never ridden the Metro or seen la Tour Eiffel light up at night. Seulement dans le ciné, seulement dans mon rève.

J'aime le film "Midnight in Paris". It makes me think that if I went to Paris, if I spent some time in the city, wandering at night and sight seeing during the day, I might actually be able to write my book and it might actually be really beautiful. Je veux me trouver à Paris. Je pense que la vie est un continuellement se retrouver. Et je veux me trouver à Paris.

Un jour, je vais obtenir un reinet aller à Paris. Un jour, je vais tenir sous la Tour Eiffel at admirer lamagnificence c'est. Un jour, je vais marcher à travers les jardins deVersailles. La histoire, la grandeur, la Champs-Elysées. Paris.

Books I Read

2012-01-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

I must be getting my drive to write back, because in the several year history of this blog, there has very rarely been a time when I publish a post so soon after publishing another one. Perhaps the writer's fatigue I've suffered from my last semester of college is finally wearing off. Maybe it's the zeal of the new year and the desire to actually make good on my resolution that is pushing me to write a bit more. Maybe I'm bored at work. Or maybe it's that my darling cousin Natalie recently asked me, in a comment on this very blog, what I read and where I get my inspiration from and this is in response to that.

In a fiction writing workshop I took during my undergrad, from one of my all time favorite professors, Nicole Sheets, we read what felt like a lot, and wrote response to what we read. Nicole said the purpose of this exercise was simple: the better reader you are, the better writer you are. As you may or may not know, I have a debilitating condition in my retinas and though it's been stable for quite a few years, I have some irreversible damage to my right retina, which causes me to read quite slowly and also have some trouble reading sometimes if I'm tired or the light is bad. This condition causes me to not read nearly as much as I should or would like to.

So when I do pick up a book, I'm pretty picky. It doesn't help that I'm also hard to please when it comes to genre, writing style, and characters. For example, have I ever read a Harry Potter book? No. Will I ever read a Harry Potter book? No. Not because I'm 29 and they're for adolescents or I don't think J.K. Rowling isn't a brilliant writer and story teller. It's because fantasy will almost never find a home in my life (see list below for possible exception). I've tried to read it, and I just can't do it. I can't make myself believe that this could be real. I actually find this to be very limiting and a little debilitating, but I know I won't write fantasy because that's not what I'm good at.

What I'm good at, and subsequently what I like to read, is non-fiction. I think this genre is slightly overlooked by a lot of people, mainly because it can be, or seem, quite mundane to some people. And let's face it, a book chronicling the resurgence of political power by the Libertarian party isn't going to interest a large percentage of the American public. But everyone has a story, and lots of the time it's a pretty interesting story, and if it's told right, it can be cool to read about. What I like about non-fiction is that it's real, it happened to someone and someone gained something from the experience. (That's not to say all non-fiction is true. Stephen Fry anyone? But that's a different discussion for a different day. It's also not to say that fiction never comes from real life experiences, but that too, is a different discussion for a different day).

Anyway, this has turned into quite the diatribe when all I was meaning to do was list some of my favorite books. So without further ado, here it is, the list!

Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea- Chelsea Handler
Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen (this is for real! "I get lost in the language, words like 'thither', 'mischance'... 'fel-icity'.")
Cool, Calm, and Contentious- Merrill Markoe (currently reading, and it's awesome)
Peter and Wendy- J.M. Barrie (also known as Peter Pan)
Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat who Touched the World- Vicki Myron
The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Blind Side- Michael Lewis
The Great American Essay Series
Me Talk Pretty One Day- David Sedaris

Some books I really want to read include:

The Boys of My Youth- Jo Ann Beard (out of print! :[ )
Steve Jobs- Walter Isaacson (which I got for Christmas and is 600 pages and 42 chapters long)
One Day It'll All Make Sense- Common (yes, the rapper)

And so there you have it. If you're so inclined, please leave a comment and tell me some of your favorite books or authors, or anything you think I should read, or how narrow-minded I am for not liking fantasy. Go nuts! I would also like to state that I absolutely abhor the Twilight series for several reasons which I will now list: bad, bad, bad, bad writing, the absolute worst female lead ever, ridiculous premise, and an awful message to all the pre-teen girls who are devouring those books that life does not go on if your vampire boyfriend leaves you. The End

Remembering Tom & Andy

2012-01-03T20:24:00.000-08:00

Every year around this time, a little black cloud settles over my world. It's not voluntary, it's almost mandatory, and there is little I can do about it. It generally goes away after January 6th and things can get back to normal.

This January 6th is the 13 year anniversary of the day my brothers died. 13 years feels like a long time, and I suppose that's because it is a long time. Much of the time, Tom & Andy don't come up in our everyday conversation. As time's worn on, our memories have progressed to a place that doesn't constantly focus on what's not here. But when I close my eyes, I can still see them perfectly- sitting in their room, listening to depression rock and laughing, Tom making cookies in the kitchen (he was the best with peanut butter and pumpkin chocolate chip), Andy painting on his fancy, beautiful easel with oil paints... such a steady hand, blending colors seamlessly in the backdrop on his work... my favorite is the sunflower- bright yellow petals against a fading, brilliant blue sky. Rich, green leaves seem to wave at you as the flower watches from it's canvas.

Tom & Andy were wonderful brothers. There were some rough years in there with Andy being addicted to heroin. That devil dictated his every move and he hurt many people because of it. There was a lot of anger and sadness in our family because of it, and when he came back and asked for forgiveness, it hurts me to admit that it took me much longer than it should have to let him back in. Regardless of those years and his transgressions, Andy was the coolest. It wasn't even anything he did, it was his demeanor and the way he treated people. He was charismatic and charming, and maybe it was my adolescent naivety but he always made me feel like I was the coolest too.

Tom was brilliant. Really, he was brilliant. He could do anything as long as it made sense to him, and things like science and engineering made sense to Tom. He could stay up for hours and days on end, work the night shift at Amoco while finishing his chemical engineering degree at the U. and stil be the wittiest person on earth. I loved going to visit Tom when he was working at the gas station because he'd let me get a soda from the fountain for only the cost of the cup, lid, and straw. That was roughly a dime, at least that's all he'd charge me. He was always trying to protect me from the harsh realities of the world... pretending the coffee smell in his car was something he was hauling to the station and not his preferred morning beverage... I guess he always wanted me to think the best of him, and I did; whether he was showing me his 20 page test that was 1 problem long, trying so hard to tutor me-the untutorable- in geometry, or even going night boarding at Brighton.

Now they're gone, as they have been since 1999. But last year a miracle happened. On January 6th, 2011, my nephew was born, a little boy named Thomas Andrew. I knew he'd be born on the 6th, he had to be. And Thomas is going to be as brilliant and charming as his namesakes. He already is. A kid that can capture the attention of a room just by entering it, and he can't even walk yet. He's brought sunshine and joy to a day my family has dreaded for 13 years, and though the deep meaning of the day still looms and beckons depression, Thomas crawls in, flaps his arms and kicks his legs, slips you that smile and chases the depression back into the recesses from whence it came. Thomas has literally saved the day.

Thomas was here visiting with his parents for Christmas this year. My other youngest nephew, Zach: son of Ben, was over on Christmas Eve, playing with Thomas as they opened their Christmas Eve presents. As I watched them play I couldn't help but see my brothers in those two beautiful boys.

2012: End of Days... I Don't Write

2011-12-27T13:43:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking for a week or so about what I'd like to write in this space about Christmas. I never did come up with a golden idea, because Christmas means so many things to different people, and even though this is my blog, I didn't know what I wanted to say. I will say this about Christmas though- whatever you believe, however you celebrate, whether you did or didn't get what you hoped for, the Christmas season- those 5 weeks between the fourth Thursday in November and the first day of January- is a time of love, and though it may not feel like it in these modern times of political correctness and war, a time of peace. I hope the spirit of love and peace blessed and touched everyone this season, and I hope you got what you wanted for Christmas.

Now, tis the season to make resolutions. I very often don't actually end up making resolutions, and as often as I do make them, I don't end up keeping any of them. I got to thinking about my resolutions for 2011, and when I realized I hadn't accomplished any of them I also realized I didn't make any last year. I was decidedly too busy being in Newport Beach "living the life", sharing a condo with my niece and nephews and going to the Rose Bowl to be bothered with resolutions. Apparently. At least I have somewhat of an excuse for not growing or progressing as a person. Right? Right?!?!

Anyway, this year I am actually going to make a resolution or two, and I'm writing them here so that I can actually A) remember what it is and B) have a constant reminder that I am either accomplishing it or am a complete slug for not doing anything.

Mu first resolution is to work on my book. That doesn't mean I need to work on it everyday. Baby steps, baby steps. It means that I need to do some serious work on it over the next year. Preferably to have it done by this time next year. That would be ideal. My last semester of college was an immense amount of writing and I was burned out, but I think that's wearing off and I might be ready to work on this project. I hope I am anyway, because I feel like a lazy, ungrateful teenage (2 of which I am NOT) for not working on it during all my loads of free time.

I've been thinking really hard about a second resolution and I can't really come up with one. I suppose I'd like to work on maybe not hating the general population so much, perhaps not letting people's idiocy irritate me so much, possiblly attempt to have a brighter outlook on life. I'm not sure these are things I can change though. I do wish that I liked people, that I could be a little more like my brother-in-law Andrew and get along with everyone, whether I like them or not. But I'm not going to be that way and I know it. I think that's why I want to be a writer, so I can sit in my house and be a recluse because that's what writers do.

I always admire the people who have overcome adversity and have had generally really hard lives and still believe the best about people and the world. I do wish I could be like that, but I've become jaded, for no particular reason other than it's the easier thing to do, and believing the best in people seems cliched to me now. Perhaps if I can change my way of thinking, I can start believing the best in people. Rather than being a judgey-pants, I should make up stories about people in my head, decide that maybe the creeper on the bus isn't just a gangly oaf who stares at me, but a guy who trains seeing eye dogs on the weekends, and during the week, on the bus, pretends to be blind so he can understand the impact his work with seeing eye dogs has on people. Right? Right??!?!

So I guess that means my second resolution is to change my way of thinking. Easier said than done, but a resolution isn't a resolution unless it's challenging. If I actually do get my book written and am successful in starting to believe that people are inherently good and not irritating, 2012 might actually be the end of days.

Somewhere, Beyond the Sea

2011-12-12T18:50:00.000-08:00

This is for Nikki.

Somewhere high above the city, through the cumulonimbus and the thinning atmosphere, past the spot where stars twinkle and the moon smiles, beyond earth and beyond space, is a world without doors, sadness, or heartbreak. It's a place of light and love, where love really never dies and white is always in season. The gloriousness of this place can hardly be conveyed by a mere mortal. Having never been there, only symbolically I suppose, I can only imagine what it's truly like. But I do know that there is no disease, pain, or sorrow. Suffering is left behind and joy fills every crevice because the journey is over, and all were triumphant.

The worst part of this world is the ones left behind, the ones still suffering through grief and sorrow here on earth. It's hard to see sometimes that the ones you've lost are better because you feel so much worse. Slowly specs of time start to fill the emptiness inside, and confirmation will come through in the tiniest of ways to let you know everything will indeed be alright. An Everclear song on the radio, a sunflower on the side of the highway, two peas in a pod from the garden... It's the evolution of the soul in so many different contexts, all meaningful and all pertinent to the progression of the human spirit.

Loss is never easy. If it were, it wouldn't be called "loss", or the word wouldn't have such a negative connotation. The most sacred part of loss is knowing that eternity exists, the afterlife is there, and for the rest of your journey in this life can be propelled by knowing the ones you loved and lost will be there waiting for you when your sojourn is through. And that living without them, though never easy, does get more bearable, and even a little less lonely, even if it's the most minuscule amount humanly possible.

Somewhere, through the gray of the clouds and the inversion over this valley, past the light pollution from the skyscrapers downtown, above the space station and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn's rings, waits paradise for all of us.

All I Want for Christmas is...

2011-12-05T08:56:00.001-08:00

World peace. No, I'm not a beauty pageant contestant, but world peace would make things a lot easier, and a lot less interesting. I know world peace is an impossible dream, and honestly I'm not one who dreams it very often. If there was world peace, and everyone got along, there was no more fighting or disease, what would Jon Stewart have to talk about? So for the sake of "The Daily Show", world peace isn't what I want for Christmas. What I really did ask for is as follows: The Biography of Steve Jobs, Cool, Calm, and Contentious by Merrill Markoe, and a fluffy kitten. Other than that, I don't really need or want anything. Well, there are things that I need/want, but they are a little out of reach of the normal person.

In no particular order...

Enough money to pay off student loans
The heartbreak of missing my brothers at the holidays would disappear
A kidney (naturally)
No more Medicare premiums (especially the one due on Christmas Day)
For my young friend Nikki and her husband Spencer to have strength, peace, and comfort during this difficult time in their lives.
No more hungry people
No more Rachel Ray or Twilight
Peace for the brokenhearted
Love for the lonely
Robert Downey Jr.
"Community" to be back on NBC this January

I feel like some of those things have a distinctive "Grown Up Christmas List" feel which was not my aim at all. But I really do want for there to be no more hungry people, especially kids, in the world. And if Robert Downey Jr. showed up at my house, I would not turn him away. Anyway, the point of this really, is that... oh I don't know. I guess I just hope that everyone will remember that love is the most important part of this season, even though it's fun to go to Christmas parties, find that perfect gift, convince your nephews you're getting them coal from the new "coal store" at the mall... I think John Lennon had it right. "All we need is love" this Christmas season, and all the year round. All we need is love, love, love, love, love.

I think that really is all I want for Christmas.

A Response to the Ultimatum Letter from My Transplant Coordinator

2011-11-17T17:59:00.001-08:00

** Mere seconds after I published this I realized that to you, the reader, this might seem a little unfair toward the University of Utah Transplant Program. It might seem that way, but it is not. If you knew all the ghosts on the inside of the situation, you would realize that I may be more than generous here.

Dear Heidi,

Thank you for your recent letter, which I received in the mail today (17/11/11). I did not appreciate your tone, nor did I appreciate your ultimatum. While it is true that I have not returned the 3 phone calls you've placed to me "in the last 2 months" as your letter states, did you or did you not speak with my mother on the phone just last week? The messages you left me did not appear to be urgent, as you said each time you were calling to "check in". I did not feel it necessary to call you back. Here is why:

I was in your program for one full year and received approximately 2 phone calls from the other coordinator. If I called, I was treated abhorrently; like a small, idiot child who failed to understand the intricacies of organ transplantation and the required waiting time when one is on the wait list. Well, I do understand and I've done this before. I just found it odd that a terminally ill patient (granted ALL transplant patients are terminal) was contacted only TWICE in one year, once to say there was an available kidney and NOPE, clerical error!, and second to say I needed to come to transplant clinic if I wanted to say on the list. That does not set a great precedence.
Because of the seeming incompetence of your program, I've been in the process of switching to the transplant program at IMC, where they are shocked that I've been on the wait list at your program for a year and a half and STILL do not have a kidney. Yes, I'm switching from your program, not being double listed, leaving, abandoning ship, saying sionara. For the last 18 months, I've been on the UNOS list, which I know you don't control, but my sister and I have also been in 2 paired donor programs which have yielded no results, and most likely, no trying for results. As it turns out, your program has never done a paired exchange, while the IMC program does them frequently, with people who have higher PRAs than I do. A paired exchange is my best bet, therefore your program is not my best bet.
Your letter stated that you need to be able to get hold of people on the wait list within 1 hour of when a kidney becomes available. I believe you currently have my cell, home, work, mother's, and sister's numbers, all of which would be adequate to reach me on if a kidney was indeed available. It's probably wrong to assume, but I figured that you would go ahead and try me on one of the other 4 numbers you have listed for me if, in fact, a kidney was available and you could not reach me on my cell, which for the record is the only number you've called other than my mother's last week. Also, I'd like to think that if you did have a kidney available for me that you'd tell me on the message instead of saying you were "checking in" each and every time you called.

I recognize that the gross negligence on your program's part in the first 18 or so months that I've been with it does not mean that I should now turn the tables. I did actually think that my transfer to IMC was complete and that any day I should be taken off your list and out of your system as an active patient. It is my own fault for not recognizing that. But the threat in your letter? That you're going to place me as inactive if you don't hear from me by December 1st? The University Health Care Transplant Program has been contented to ignore and belittle me for a year and a half. Now you are taking my life, which no one has ever shown regard for, and threatening to put it on hold, once again and even more than it already is, because of an unreturned phone call? It seems a little petty and a lot ridiculous.

So look forward to me calling you tomorrow. And I'm not going to hold back. I'm going to tell you exactly what I think of your program and exactly what I think of the letter you sent. Then I'm going to tell you all the reasons why I'm transferring to another program. Lastly i'm going to tell you good riddance and that my experience with the University Transplant Program has inspired me to make sure the next job I get has insurance that is accepted by IHC, or Select Health or whatever it's called now, because I NEVER want to have to even consider being treated by anyone in your program again.

Until tomorrow,

Sarah

Life Makes Love Look Hard

2011-11-09T13:21:00.000-08:00

I've been pondering something lately that I never thought I'd do, or ponder: online dating. Stop laughing. All I've been doing is pondering it. I haven't signed up for match.com, or taken whatever compatibility test eHarmony advertises, or even gone to any of those sites to "check them out". I've just been thinking about it because I currently have no viable avenues for meeting men. Unless you count the bus, which I don't.

Since I moved back with my parents (for medical reasons, y'all) I'm not going to church with any single people. They're all married with children, or just married, or retired with glaucoma. I don't meet anyone at work, even though I work at the University and there are literally thousands of men there. I work a desk job, and my office has very little traffic. Occasionally people come in to use my stapler (no innuendo intended) but that's about it. All my good friends are married or dating-committed and I am apparently not the friend anyone sets up with people they know.

I know I have some issues. The whole no-kidney-terminal-illness thing is sort of a big deal, and I know from past experience that it's a big deal to other people too, and not "I'm kind of a big deal" in a good way. It's scary, not knowing whether you're going to live forever with dialysis or always be sick. It's scary to others who don't understand, or even worse, who do understand the gravity of the situation. Because of my medical issues I may not be able to have my own kids and in the LDS culture that can be a deal breaker for a lot of guys, which means I am sort of a deal breaker myself, not by any fault of my own, but just because it's become my lot in life. I think that's why Mormon boys don't like me. I don't fit into the mold of perfect wife, perfect life. With me nothing is really ever perfect, it's always a little messy and I don't think anyone thinks "I can't wait to get married and have a messy life".

So maybe it's not in the cards for me. Maybe the tables will turn one day and I'll be my parents' caretaker, rather than the other way around- which is what it is right now. I can always be cool Aunt Sarah and buy my nieces' and nephews' love with gifts, since I won't have any kids or a husband of my own to spend my book money on. I'll finally get my fluffy gray kitten, but I'll draw the line at one. I will not become the local cat lady. I'll travel the world... well maybe just Europe and the Caribbean and other places that I won't get diseases by drinking the water. I'll buy a house on the beach in Carlsbad and the ocean can be my companion. At least I'd be reassured that it will always be around.

And that's why I've started thinking about online dating. Because planning my life of solitude does not seem like the life I really want to have for myself. Lord knows I can't cook for just one and I hate leftovers, so I really need to have someone to cook for. And I really need to have someone to write to. and I really need someone to love with. Love rich and love deep and love far. Just love.

For Every Season

2011-10-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about Christmas today. I was looking at the "Catch of the Day" deals on Boden and started looking at girls' clothes for my nieces for Christmas and I realized, it's only mid-October, I don't need to be thinking about Christmas yet. But by that time it was too late and I was in the throes of twinkle lights and ringing bells and the smell of cinnamon almonds in malls. Ugly sweater parties and white elephant gifts and love and laughter and that little bit of heartbreak that comes with knowing someone is missing. And that feeling that takes over the earth, that one that can't really be described other than to say it feels like it's the holidays. I love that feeling, and even though it means another year has come and gone, and that I'm another year older with little to show for it, I'm actually excited for it to be the holiday season once again.

Now, as it is only mid-October, I'll enjoy the fall(ing) leaves and the weather that's finally making it feel like fall. Football and salted caramel hot chocolate from Starbucks and cranberries and pumpkin and that little holiday we call Thanksgiving. And I'll enjoy that since the surgery last week (and only now do I realize the most clever title for that blog post would have been "Surgery V: The Final CUT) and 6 days of recovery, things are looking up. My hand doesn't hurt all the time, in fact only some of my fingers are numb. I can get all the way through dialysis without need of pain killers or lessened time. I can type more than a sentence without needing to take a break because of forearm fatigue. Sure, I have a catheter in my leg but as it turns out, fem caths are a lot less bothersome to me than the ones they put in my chest.

I didn't really get to enjoy my summer, and I got a week of fall enjoyment in Boston before the s*** hit the fan in September, now I can hopefully enjoy the rest of fall and the coming holiday season. It's weird to think it'll be here before we all know it. But days turn to weeks, and weeks turn to months, and seasons change and memories fade and suddenly you're 29, wondering where your youth has gone. (so dramatic, I know) You blink your eye and suddenly your little cousin is old enough to drink, your dad is getting ready to retire, your little brother is a father and you find yourself saying phrases like "When I was a teenager we didn't all have cell phones". And worst of all, you find yourself writing dribble like this on your blog. It's kinda tough getting older, but it's tough when you're young too. ;)

See Below

2011-10-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

This is the cover I chose for my new iPhone. I thought it was only appropriate, for several different reasons.(Sorry about the landscape view. I couldn't figure out how to turn it in this blogger program). Keep on keeping calm. :)

Surgery V: The Final Chapter (Hopefully)

2011-10-10T15:02:00.000-07:00

It's my birthday week, and it's gearing up to be not-that-bad of a week. Maybe. As of 8 a.m. this morning it was going to be a normal, calm week. Then I went to have my stitches removed and now I'm having surgery #5 on my arm on Thursday. The blood flow to my right hand has been greatly diminished because the graft is "stealing" the blood from it, and it's getting worse every day so Dr. Sarfati is going to tie off and/or remove the graft so I can regain the full use of my right hand. Being right handed, this will be very beneficial to me. But it's also very bittersweet. It means that all these surgeries, all this pain and tribulation, all these scars were all for naught. Hopefully this will be the end of my vascular journey/nightmare and I can just get a kidney and get on with my life.

But this week is full of more than just surgery. Wednesday I finally meet with the transplant surgeon at IMC, an appointment that has been delayed twice because they've been doing transplants (a good sign!), AND it's the Season 6 premier of PSYCH, my favorite television show of all time. This is a big deal to me because I really do love "Psych" and it can get me laughing when nothing else can.
Shawn-"Gus, don't be both Ashlee Simpson albums."
Gus-"There were 3 Ashlee Simpson albums, Shawn."
S-"What? How is that possible?"
G-"There was 'Autobiography', 'I Am Me', and-"
S-"I can't do this with you right now."
hahaha oh Shawn and Gus, I wish I lived in your world. Friday I should be getting the new iPhone 4S for my birthday, assuming my dad can fight through the crowd and get to the AT&T store in the first 30 seconds they're open to get me one before they run out. It's my birthday present. I'm excited. Plus I already bought a kate spade iPhone 4 cover and I needs a phone to put it on. Saturday is my actual birthday and it will be filled with dialysis, Utah v. Pitt, napping, dinner, and probably more napping. Sunday is the family celebration for mine and Max's birthdays which will include two of my favorite things: Chocolate Rum Cake from Leslie's and cranberry salad.

Birthday weeks shouldn't include surgery, but what can you do? I'm looking forward to having a hand that doesn't feel like its wickedly asleep all the time. At least I'm praying that is the end result. Happy birthday to me.

You Are Punished

2011-09-30T13:42:00.000-07:00

Read that title as if you're saying the word "punished" in the Shakespearean way. "Punish-ED" sounds so much more fierce and deplorable that just the American way. Let's think about that word for a second....

That's what I feel is happening to me. I feel like I'm being punished for some grievous offense but I don't know what I've done to warrant such a penalty. The last few weeks have been rough. It started with a clotted graft, then some surgery that turned into the worst possible worst case scenario, a couple of incisions and a whole bunch of stitches, almost critical blood loss, a fem cath in my right leg, and numbness in three of five fingers that becomes so unbearably painful during dialysis I wonder if cutting off my hand isn't a better option.

So I think to myself as I'm lying in bed, or massaging my fingers in hopes of the numbness dissipating, or when I get winded walking from my bedroom to the living room: What did I do? And this is, of course, the entirely wrong way of looking at it. I should be grateful that things aren't worse. I should be, but that's kind of hard to grasp because to me, things really can't get any worse. Now I should knock on wood before lightning strikes me.

But I'm out of options for vascular access now that we know I have a condition that causes my veins to occlude after they suffer any trauma. I have no more major veins to sustain a catheter, other than the one that is already housing one in my leg. If my graft fails, that permanent femoral catheter is my dialysis access. End of story. I need a kidney. That's the answer to all of this. I just need a kidney that works and that will stay.
***
The silence in my heart is killing me. I can't find it, no matter how hard I try. It slipped through my hands like glitter falling to the floor and the sparkle has faded away. What once could have been great is now all but a memory served in bittersweet palates. "Never mind I'll find someone like you. I wish nothing but the best for you. Don't forget me, I beg, I remember you said- sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead" (ADELE). Maybe I'm writing this off too quickly, but silence is golden and incriminating, and I don't wait forever.
***
The two things that have gone right in the last two weeks were at least pretty spectacular. The UTES beat BYU in royal fashion 54-10, in Provo. That made up for the clotted graft and the 13 hour dialysis day on 9/17. Though I had tickets to the game and couldn't go due to the aforementioned problems. It was a great game. And the best part was Utah's team coming together and playing as one entity, all connected, all in sync, all with perfect, timely execution and kept the cougars and Jake Heaps' ego in check. One of my favorite moments was in the 4th quarter when Heaps got benched in favor of 2nd string QB Riley Nelson. He looked as if he might cry. And yet, his post game comments failed to reflect the awfulness of his, or his team's performance. It's alright though. "Ute fans remain classy. Smug, but classy." (Ted Miller, ESPN)

On Wednesday I went to the Taylor Swift concert with my mom. She is just amazing. Her show was spectacular, to say the least. It was what I needed, even if I couldn't stand up. Say what you will about Taylor Swift and the strength of her voice, her lyrics make up for any range or belt-ability that she might lack. I was very pleased that she sang all my favorite songs from her "Speak Now" album. This is the third time I've seen her show, and it gets better and better every time. She seems to love performing in Salt Lake, probably because we have more little girls per capita that can produce a severe cheer in an arena, so I'm hoping the next time she comes here my nieces will be big enough to take. They would love it. That show solidified Taylor was one of my all time favorite artists. She writes songs from the heart, that transcend generations and ethnicities and differences. If I can someday write something half as beautiful as "Last Kiss", I will be successful as a writer.

For now, I'm alive. I guess I've got that going for me.

Can't Blame a Girl for Trying

2011-09-16T03:14:00.000-07:00

Some things that I write in this public space are purposefully ambiguous. Sometimes I don't want readers to know exactly what I'm thinking so I use the power of words to get it across in a less-than-obvious way. This isn't one of those times, and if the person this concerns reads it, maybe it'll cause him to rethink his strategy.

There's a guy I've been friends with for a few years. He's one of the best people I've known in any capacity and I think the world of him. I've resisted any sort of romantic inclinations towards him for several reasons- mainly he lived out of town and I personally think it's rather impossible to start a relationship when you live in different states. For the past year our relationship has developed and I found myself suppressing feeling I wasn't sure he was reciprocating. He'd make a point of visiting me every time he came to town and we started having frequent lengthy phone conversations, longer phone conversations than I've ever had with any of my best friends. Things he said to me were starting to make me believe maybe he wasn't being completely honest about his feeling for me- and really, who ever is? Especially in a situation like this where the two of you have been friends for a long time and no one wants to ruin a great friendship lest the other person doesn't feel the same way- but I was still trying to remain uninterested in anything more than a friendship. Then June happened.

He was coming to town for a relative's wedding and invited me to go. So I did. He introduced me to his family, we danced, sampled brownies, generally had a good time. And as I left I knew I couldn't fight it anymore- I was legitimately interested in this man. So I froze, naturally, because I didn't know how to react to my own feelings or what to do next, especially considering he didn't live in close proximity to me. Then he decided to move back. So now I just had to bide my time for 2 months until he came back to Salt Lake. In the meantime we continued on our "best friends forever" path, I think we both were mostly covering up what we really wanted from each other, both just waiting until August and we could see each other face to face.

He moved back to Utah. I saw him the day after he got in town, and both nights the next weekend, and again before I left for Boston. But suddenly everything changed. Without warning or notice, he's unreachable, and it's been weeks since we've talked- and for our relationship that's a big deal- and despite my best efforts I can't get him to talk to me. And it's even more frustrating because I haven't the faintest idea why. The most perplexing part is that I thought we were better friends than this, it always seemed to me we were beyond being petty and repugnant. It seems I was wrong.

Now it's almost 5 a.m., I've been awake since 3, and anyone who knows me well knows it takes a lot for me to lose sleep over something. And I'm filled with regret. Regret that I haven't ever told him that I think he's wonderful and he makes me happy, and I'd be pretty lucky if he felt the same way. And that we've had a fantastic friendship but we could be so much better together. All I want is a chance to tell him, so he will know and I can feel like I've done everything I can do to make this into something more. And if he doesn't want it then I'll know, and I can move on. You can't blame a girl for trying.

I Left My Heart in Boston

2011-09-12T11:00:00.000-07:00

My blog has been a real downer the last little while, and for that I don't apologize. Life isn't always sunshine and optimism, and if you believe that you're kidding yourself. That also doesn't mean that negativity needs to rule your psyche, it just means that sometimes things are hard, and it's fine if you want to vent about it on your blog.

Despite all the dialysis drama that's been happening lately, I got myself out of town last week and went to Boston to visit my brother and sister-in-law and nephew, also known as Tim, Corinne, and Thomas. I was pretty psyched because I'd never been to Boston before and I love the East Coast (I believe I'm meant to live on a coast, either West or East, none of this enclosed mountain valley crap for me) plus I could use a break from everything that had been going on. My parents and I flew to Boston on the 2nd, and Tim met us at the airport. We immediately picked up our rental car and proceeded to Tim and Corinne's house in Waltham.

I find that I never miss the mountains when on vacation. As a general rule I try to vacation in places that don't have tall mountain peaks. Driving down the Mass Pike I discovered this was still true. I love a good skyline, and even though it may seem unnatural, I love a skyline that's all buildings way more than nature.

Whilst in Boston we did all the usual things: Freedom Trail (sort of. Naturally it was raining on the day we were going to walk it so we became pretty picky about our stops), Old North Church, Mike's Pastry in the North End for pretty amazing cannoli, Legal Sea Food's, Fenway for a Sox game (witnessed a grand slam, the one thing that can make baseball interesting for a minute or two), Harvard, Boston Common and the Public Gardens.

I love America. And I love history, so it was pretty neat (That is neat!) to see the Old State House where the Declaration of Independence was first read to the people of Boston, and sort of see where the Boston Massacre took place. It happened right outside the Old State House, and it turned out to be a giant misunderstanding over a wig bill. We couldn't really see the spot because it was under construction. I didn't think there would really be blood on the cobblestone anyway. We ate lunch at Quincy Market and gazed at Fanueil Hall, sat in the enclosed (and still used) pews of the Old North Church, went to Harvard Square where I saw with mine own eyes the ivy covered walls of excellence, pomp, and academia.

We had the best seafood. Really, I don't know if it can be beat. Fresh, huge lobster at Woodman's of Essex, and of course fried clams, since that is where fried clams came into being. The most amazing calamari you've ever had at Legal Sea Food's, as well as amazing everything else at Legal. English pub food at John Brewer's, and who knew that Boston was such a pizza city? There were a lot of options if you wanted pizza. I did not, however, have a Fenway Frank at Fenway Park. Instead Tim and I had Fenway Fried Dough and Cokes, just what one needs to make baseball great.

Went shopping on Newbury Street- where it cost more to park for 2 hours than I spent at H&M- and in the Prudential Center and Copley Place. Visited Gloucester and Salem and Cape Ann on Labor Day and bought a lobster sucker at the Woodman's gift shop, where one can purchase a "Woodman's of Essex" shirt for your dog.

I spent a lot of time hanging out with Tim, Corinne, and Thomas, staying up to watch TCU get beat by Baylor with Tim, talking sports and inadvertently showing Thomas his first football game, a right that was supposed to be reserved for a BYU game. The game I watched with him was not a BYU game. We celebrated Tim's birthday and the big news they shared with us. Took Thomas to the beach for the first time. He was not crazy about the temperature of the Atlantic. Also took Thomas for his first T-ride. He was less than thrilled.

When the week was over and it was time to go, I worked real hard to not cry, or let anyone see that I was ruining my makeup with tears. Saying "so long" to Tim on Newbury Street was sad. I'd forgotten how much fun we have together, and how well we get along and bond over sports. Biding farewell to Corinne and Thomas an hour later in Waltham was just as hard. It was nice to be able to connect with Corinne on a level we've previously failed to achieve, and Thomas- that darling, sweet boy was the light of my life for the week I spend in Boston and it broke my heart to have to say goodbye to him. Even now, writing about it, I'm blinking back tears.

When we boarded the plane and waited for takeoff, I put in my ears and listened to "Leaving on a Jet Plane". I texted Tim and quoted lyrics from the song: "I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again. Oh [guys] I hate to go." Those lyrics epitomized what I was feeling. I wasn't ready to come back to Salt Lake. I didn't want to. I wanted to go downtown and find a tiny apartment and fly by the seat of my pants in the city. I felt like I belonged in Boston, like it was where I was meant to be, and leaving it to go back to a place I seem to barely tolerate left me feeling empty and "so lonesome I could die". But I know I'm not meant to stay here, and I really think I'll make it to Boston when the time is right.

In sum, it was an amazing trip. Sincerest thanks to my parents for taking me and paying for pretty much everything and for buying me that Red Sox sweatshirt I really wanted. And to Tim and Corinne and Thomas for letting me stay with them and for showing me the glories of Massachusetts and pumpkin donuts at Dunkin'. It was a nice reprieve from my current state of being. Boston, I'll be back.

Trying to Keep Calm and Carry On

2011-08-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of turmoil inside of me, a lot of things I want to write about but can't seem to find the words. It's been a pretty shitty couple of weeks (excuse my language but that is the only word that will suffice at present) and though great things are coming up, and some great things have happened recently, I feel in crisis. I am coming to the end of my rope with this kidney saga. Dialysis for 20 months is bleeding me dry- literally and figuratively- and the new graft in my arm is not helping me feel better about it. I do pretty well considering my situation, but I am struggling right now. I just need a kidney, that's what it boils down to, but I don't seem to have anyone on my side at transplant to fight for that to happen. I know a transplant isn't easy- I've been there before- but it was better than life on dialysis. And I know life isn't easy. It isn't supposed to be that way or it wouldn't be considered a test. I've had a pretty rough adult life, and I'm ready for a break. Please, can I have a break?

My saving grace at this point is the people I surround myself with. I have such a loving and caring family who would go to the ends of the earth and back for me if I needed it. I couldn't ask for a person in my life better than my sister Liz. I know she'd have given her kidney to me 19 months ago if she was still a match. I hold her in the highest esteem and am so proud to call her my sister. My very best friends Stephanie, Mehgan, Lacey, and Jamey never cease to amaze me with their support and love. Even though I don't see most of them as much as I'd like, they do wonders for me and I can't believe how lucky I am to have them in my life. There is another person, who has come into my life more recently. And though I'm not sure where our friendship will take us, when I close my eyes, all I see is infinite possibility through the sparks.

Saltwater Tears

2011-08-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

Caution: This is a diatribe, a soapbox I'm standing on, a harangue, if you will.

Today I was "reactivated" on the kidney transplant waiting list. I should be ecstatic, right? Nope. I'm mad. I'm mad for several reasons. A) I shouldn't have been listed as "inactive" in the first place and B) it took 35 days for the University Transplant program to reactivate me after my nephrologist recommended I be reactivated. Why? That is an excellent question.

Mid-way through June I received a call from my dialysis NP saying I needed to go directly to the ER because my blood cultures showed I had an infection. I needed to have my dialysis catheter pulled and be started on antibiotics right away. It felt like one of those Monopoly situations- "PROCEED directly to JAIL. DO NOT pass GO. DO NOT collect $200".

I went to the hospital despite feeling fine, failing to present with any symptoms, and having just returned home from lunch with friends and a badger encounter in downtown Salt Lake City. At the hospital I sat around until the next day, when the doctors treating me finally put a plan into action. I had a TEE done (of which I was told everything looked just fine on my heart) then some dialysis and finally the feared catheter pulled. Some more blood cultures were drawn to determine my fate: if they came back positive I'd have a temp cath placed, negative I'd have a perm cath placed. I was to report back to out-patient surgery first thing Monday morning.

The cultures were negative. A new permanent catheter was placed, but, my Vascular Surgeon Dr. Sarfati said, it is not a viable long term option. A vascular mapping of my left arm was done to determine if I had any veins that would work for a fistula. There was one vein the doc thought would work. It would take 2 surgeries and 3-4 months for the fistula to be usable. I'd been resisting getting a fistula for 18 month, knowing the poor state of my veins would more than likely not allow for a successful fistula.

But I was running out of options, so I gave in.

Mid-way through July Dr. Sarfati performed the first fistula placement surgery. It did not go well. In fact, the whole thing turned into a debacle and the only thing I left with was a scar on my elbow and 2 kilos of fluid in my blood. Neither the vein or artery in my arm would sustain a fistula. Yep, I told ya so.

The day before this surgery my nephrologist determined I was done with my antibiotic treatments and could be reactivated on the transplant list. It had been a month since the "infection" had presented itself and Doug had so willingly placed me inactive on all the lists. The brass in the transplant program were not convinced (Heaven forbid I should actually get a kidney) and so as is their MO, placed several more hoops for me to jump through before they could feel okay about placing me back on the list. I needed to go see an infectious disease specialist who, without knowing me, my case, or my history, would have the final say in when I could be reactivated.

Naturally she only works Mondays, so it was several weeks before I could get in to see her. August 1st was the magical day I would see Sarfati to map my right arm for a possible fistula placement and see Dr. Hanson about my phony infection. Dr. Hanson spent 1/2 an hour with me and determined that protocol said 6 weeks, not 4, of antibiotics were needed so I needed 2 more weeks of treatment and more blood cultures before I could be considered cured.

This was bullshit. Nothing about me ever follows protocol and it certainly isn't going to start now. All the blood cultures I'd had drawn for the last 6 weeks came back negative. I'd had almost 7 straight weeks of the antibiotic already. Let's do another TEE and draw blood cultures today. I'll march right down to the lab. Nope. Sometimes "clumps of platelets can form on the valves of the heart and look like an infection". So wait a sec, this "infection" for which I've never had a symptom and has caused me months of pain and 2 surgeries could have been platelets??? REALLY? Fine, then let's do blood cultures today. Nope. Protocol says.... really. It didn't matter what I said to Dr. Hanson. Protocol was what mattered to her. Patient cases aren't individual in her office, someone once came up with a little something called "protocol" and hence it has become the law. I repeat, bullshit.

But that was the word and I had no choice but to do 2 more weeks of antibiotic and more blood cultures. If everything came back negative, I could be relisted. Well the cultures did come back negative, just like I said they would. And for reasons unknown to me, it takes 6 days for a blood culture to be determined truly negative, whereas only 2 for it to be positive. It only takes me about a second to turn negative. After missing 3 months of the paired donor exchange matching and 2 months of possible cadaver matches, I'm active on the list again. Yippee.

In the meantime, Sarfati mapped my right arm and decided to place a graft in my forearm. Of course this couldn't be done until I finished the loathsome antibiotics. So on Tuesday last I had my third surgery in 2 months for dialysis access. It was a success, so far, but my right arm is about the size and temperature of a turkey leg, with a purple-ish hue that runs from wrist to bicep and 2 incisions in between. I can feel. and see, the graft underneath my skin. I can only imagine what it will look like when the swelling goes away. It's a damn miracle that I can even type right now because the pain and swelling have been prohibiting me for a week. I am not left handed.

After I got off the phone with my transplant coordinator this afternoon I laid in my bed and cried. Not tears of joy, but big saltwater tears of frustration. I generally have a pretty good attitude about my life situation, but this has been a cruel, cruel summer and I felt sorry for myself. The pain in my arm, the missed opportunities, the scars on my chest, the frustration over the seeming incompetence of the entire University Transplant Program were overwhelming. I feel like I'm being punished for something. But I don't know what. And I don't know why. And I don't know how to rectify the situation.

And I think about people who have it a lot worse than I do... about my old boss whose husband was shot 4 times in a mall with a sawed off shot gun and now lives life in a wheelchair. Her entire life was shattered in a second, everything changed, everything became difficult. And about Bethany Hamilton who, at age 14, lost her left arm to a shark on the eve of her professional surfing career. She got back on the board.

I feel defeated right now, even though I'm back on the list and the swelling and pain in my arm are slowly subsiding. I feel beaten. I need to figure out how to get back on the board.

Term of Affection

2011-07-29T20:24:00.000-07:00

Why did you call me chérie?

Was it because my situation became very real to you after that cold day in July, the one I knew was coming but nobody listened to me? No, what did I know, just a twit with an attitude who'd been to the rodeo once or twice before. Did it become hard to ignore after that day, so you used pronouns you probably shouldn't have, lumping you and me into a singular category where one of us really doesn't belong? Was it the realization that I am running out of time, and you are, therefore, running out of time to make any of this happen, make any of this work? Did you say it because you're lonely? Because I'm lonely? And if we let ourselves, we could help each other, but getting to that point is going to be tricky. It requires crossing a chasm we've never dared to face, one so deep that if we fall, we won't make it back out. One that could ruin all we've worked to establish. Loneliness is making my sorry heart bleed.

Why do you call me chérie?

Is it because your demeanor was different, non-challant, casual, cordial? Were you covering up for something you didn't say, or did actually speak out loud? Is it your way of letting me down gently so the mess can be avoided, heading me off at the pass before I plummet into dangerous tides? Are you worried about my eternity, because I seem so clean and free and void of sin, with the innocence of youth and the grandeur of an unknown future? Are you afraid you'll soil me, take away what you think I possess when you're not really sure if I do, or that you don't? Convictions do not run cold in me. I am stronger than I look, more brutal than one might think. I do not delight in folly, nor do I allow emotion to dictate my thought.

Did you use that word as a term of affection? Were you attempting to show what I cannot see? Was the repeat usage a reaffirmation or a redundancy, something you forgot had escaped your lips just days before? I fear the first time may have been a mistake, as your behavior afterword would suggest, but the second time has yet to tell, I don't know what to make of it. You seemed so natural, so at home in the word, in the loaded meaning that could continue from dusk till dawn, only in the dark of night, ribbons of idiosyncrasy, looking at the moon, gazing at the stars, with a memory foam arm and tired, tired eyes.

It was a term of affection, otherwise it wouldn't have been uttered twice. But the mystery lies in the context. Therein is the real question. If I could go back to when we were sixteen and make myself notice you, would things be different now?

About A Boy Who's a Friend

2011-07-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

Something got me thinking about you tonight, so I looked up your blog. Not much was new, but what was new made me miss you. And my mind wandered and I realized: I miss talks in the car and walks up the street, dinner at Ruth's and nothing ever complete. Redbox movies, chocolate chip cookies, guitar solos, fairytale songs in hospital rooms, annoyed looks at paper basketball. Promises to finish it later, promises fulfilled, plays with British accents, English nerd geek-outs. Salads at Lambs Cafe, Unblock Me, freezing rain and charcoal skies behind your frame as you broke away to talk with me for only a second. Play reading and play writing and play watching. A Poem about Peter Pan, eggs benedict and homemade danish. Married student housing and lame songs about Provo love, then a real song and real great, real big voices singing about love in the real world. Spring rain on my shoulders walking to the car. That night at the old Children's hospital with Bob and those others and the movie we watched after. Writing papers for EarAmLit, Noodles after the final, explanations, insight, kindness, friendship, non-committal, benevolence, patience, expectations, revelations, hope. Barnes and Noble, and you laughing at my armful of books and indecision. Slurpees and hot chocolate and nonchalance. Spanish and French dueling it out. Brett Dennen's "Heaven" and "How to Train Your Dragon" on the day Zack was born. Your sister and banana nut muffins and all those nights and days I hoped you'd come around.

Three years worth of sporadic memories crammed into one long paragraph... your heartbreaking disappointment at the absence of mile-high biscuits, you walking me home when it was just down the block, calling me when I needed it the most though you couldn't have known... Thinking about you everytime I listen to Kate Voegele. I hope you come back from Provo soon.

Thunderstorms inside. Thunderstorms outside.

2011-07-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

It's monsoon season in Utah. I didn't know we had one, but apparently we do because it's been monsooning everyday for like a week. That does not a monsoon season make, but usually it's hot and dry here in July. Personally I like it. It's a relief to not have the heat, or the sun. It's reflective and brings me to introspection.

I've been on a bit of a Jane Austen binge lately. Having only read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, not really the classic Austen, I never really understood her writing MO until I found myself watching the movies of all her books except for Northanger Abbey, as there isn't a movie of that book yet. I also watched Becoming Jane, which really started this whole Jane Austen journey. And I realized something that was very profound to me: Jane Austen had a sad life in love. She never married, had a proposal by an oaf that she declined, and died at age 42, alone. Yet all the characters in her novels find love and happiness with rich, handsome men who love them with every ounce of their souls. And hearts. And minds. And estates in the grand English countryside.

In Becoming Jane, a fictionalized "true story" if ever there was one, Jane tells her sister Cassandra that she is giving her characters- coincidentally she's writing Pride and Prejudice at the time- magnificent happiness, so grand it's practically unfathomable. This got me to thinking about myself and my life as a writer. I prefer non-fiction for the pure fact that I know it actually happened to someone. It was a real person's struggle, someone's pain and loss and heartache, it was true love and real feelings and overwhelming joy. It happened. It meant something to someone. It was genuine, not made up.

(DISCLAIMER: I have written fiction, have read loads of fiction, taken classes on fiction, and it takes immense talent, emotion, and genuine thought and feeling to write it. I also know from experience that fiction oft times comes from true life experiences. So I'm not trying to knock fiction. Hopefully you'll fully grasp my meanderings in a moment or two.)

I realized that I didn't want to write books about the life I wish I'd had, or the life I hope I'll have. Even though hope is a wonder asset, too much of it can lead to heartbreak, just like writing the life I want to happen for myself will. It's okay to hope, but I feel I have to draw the line at creating impossible fantasies for myself. In one of my all time favorite movies, You've Got Mail- and this is not the forum to discuss the grammatical errors in the title of said film- the heroine, one Kathleen Kelly says "So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book when, shouldn't it be the other way around?"

I want to be successful like Jane Austen. I want my books to become canonical. I want to write the book I have planned now, maybe something in epistolary format, publish my chapbook of poetry from that class I took, perhaps research and write a historical diddy about England during the second World War. But I don't want to write a life that isn't mine. I don't think my heart could handle it when it turned out to be false. I want a great love for myself, not for someone else, not for someone I'm writing, wishing it was me. I don't want my life to be something I read in a book once. It should be the other way around.

The Sharp Knife of a Short Life

2011-06-15T09:43:00.001-07:00

The post-graduation boredom has set in. At least the result is improving my vocabulary.

I've been reading "The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes", mostly at work because I finish what I need to do for the day each day by about 9 am. With 9 more hours to go, I get a lot of reading done. I've begun using words like "conundrum" and "spry" and "constitution" in regards to one's health and body, not the governing document of the United States. It makes me feel like I'm putting my English degree to good use, even though it's the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that is really causing this improvement.

Other things that are going on.... Not. Much.

Seriously.

All this free time has given me ample opportunity to reflect upon my life. This is not where I'm going to get philosophical, but just quote movies or songs that sum up what I'm thinking. The quote that surmises it the best is from "You've Got Mail"- the title of which should have really been "You Have Mail" but that's besides the point- when our heroin Kathleen Kelly says "I lead a small life. Good, but small." That's how I feel about my life lately. I've done a lot of things, been many places, tried many different varieties of bread pudding, but I lead a small life. Not that I want to lead a grand life, but I want more than a secretarial position and an Avenues apartment. I want to live in New York City, or on the California Coast, or, ideally, in a London flat that's a tube stop or two away from Kensington Park and the Westminster Bridge and Harrod's on Brompton Road. I want to work for Penguin and write a book and make a name and career for myself. Those are things I don't feel like I can do in the stifling valley in which I now live.

I recently had a long and revealing talk with my sister. In my own words, I had a conundrum I needed to speak with her about in private. I've been feeling rather inadequate lately in some regards that I won't discuss here, and my mind was a-wrestle with issues I couldn't quite solve. Liz, being the wise and brilliant and beautiful older sister she is, helped me realize that no, I'm not like most the girls that surround me here. I don't have aspirations of being a stay at home mom- not that there is anything wrong with that. Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for stay at home moms because they raise the future leaders of the world and it is probably the hardest profession/job that a woman could ever come across. At this point in my life, I don't have that desire. I sort of felt by not wanting this I was somehow letting down my future, but she showed me that I'm not letting anyone or anything down; every path is different, and maybe that isn't in mine. There are a lot of ways to mother, and a lot of different people/things that need to be mothered. And I started to feel better, and less inadequate, and my mind started to settle.

There is a phone call I need to make that I'm afraid to make. And it might take some time to actually dial the number. But when I do, my life may get a little less small, and my future might open up a little more. The beginning might be something beautiful and worth waiting for, and even though some people won't understand, at least for a while, I'll be able to honestly say, it was the right thing for me and I know without a doubt I'll be happy. Then I'll go make some bread pudding, because mine cannot be beat.

Graduation

2011-05-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

Today my last grade was posted. I passed all my classes, even math (B-!) which means I have officially finished my undergraduate career and the University can now mail me my diploma. Boy that took a long time.

Graduation was fantastic. I walked in the College of Social Work convocation on the 5th because I work in the CSW and they all have a lot invested in me. My roommates and parents came to the convocation, and the Masters cohort I've been the assistant for for the last 3 years was graduating too. I walked across the stage of Kingsbury Hall as Ruth Geertisen-McKane read my name a degree and a loud cheer- louder than I was expecting- went through the Hall. Norma handed me my diploma holder and I posed for a picture with Dean Mather and Norma. Jennifer waited at the end of the stage and gave me hug.

As I sat in Kingsbury listening to the speakers talk about social work and the profession, all things not particularly relevant to me, I realized that I finally made it. I'm not an exceptionally emotional person, it takes a lot for me to cry, but there were more than a few times that I had to blink back tears during the convocation. I was finally graduating, 10 years after graduating from high school, a kidney transplant, broken back, failed pancreas transplant, rejected kidney, and nearly a year and a half of dialysis, I was graduating from college. All on my own.

After Dean Mather told us we were "now all social workers", the convocation ended. I managed to find Mehgan and Lacey, and eventually we found my parents and went to Little America for dessert. Commencement was the next day, as was my college's convocation which I elected not to walk in after all. But commencement, that was a different story.

Because of my family's affinity for being early to things, we arrived at the Jon M. Huntsman center about 7:15 a.m. Graduates didn't need to be there until, at earliest. 7:30. But we got a sweet, sweet partking spot right next to the arena, and had time to meander around the perimeter of the the JMHC and enjoy the warm May morning and the beautiful campus below us (corny, yes, but this place means a lot to me!). Because of our earliness I was in the front of one of the Bachelors degrees lines. Jenny and Katelyn found me in line so I had some friends to enjoy commencement with.

Finally 8:20 arrived and we began our procession into the arena, through the tunnel. One of the greatest moments of my life was the moment we walked onto the floor of the Huntsman Center, with the Wind Ensemble playing graduation music and people in the stands; the stage set up for graduation and seats on the floor for graduate level and distinction students. We marched across the floor in our caps and gowns and were seated in the stands, I was on the second row from the floor across from the stage. Then the faculty and University Trustees and distinguished guests marched in with Michael K. Young and commencement began.

Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You'll Meet in Heaven) was the commencement speaker and he was fabulous. I couldn't have wished for a better speaker than Mitch, and my mother, who attended Tim's commencement at BYU last year said in not so many words that this one was MUCH better. Then President Young, in his last Utah commencement, conferred upon the Masters and Ph.D candidates their degrees, then conferred upon the Bachelors candidates their degrees, and we were graduated. I turned my tassel (again) and was Sarah Rosalie Jackman, B.A.

Katelyn, Jenny, and I walked up the stairs to the concourse and as I walked through the doors out of the arena I threw up my hands and yelled "College graduates!! Yeeeaahh!!!) in a fashion more Hollywood-esque than I like to admit. But it felt good, and as I walked through the Huntsman Center concourse and ran in to fellow graduates whom I've known throughout my experience at Utah, I realized that it doesn't get any better than this for a college student. This day, the hour and a half of commencement, the hour of waiting for the processional to start, the five minutes of marching, and the "recessional" around the arena and out into the world, figuratively and literally, really doesn't get much better.

Finally Final Finals

2011-04-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've written anything here, obviously, and that is because my free time is slim these days, and has been for a long time. It's finally finals time of my final finals. I am overwhelmed and stressed and under immense pressure (from myself) and excited that May 6th rapidly approaches. I still can't believe I'm finally graduating. But graduation raises the eternal question: What is next? That is an excellent question. What IS next? The answer to said quesiton in "I have absolutely no idea". Ideally, I'd get a job with a publishing house in New York City (that's right! Putting the city girl back in the city!) as an assistant editor or editorial assistant (I believe the only difference in those is the name) and I'd move across the country, find myself a new dialysis center and a new transplant program and live the "Sex in the City" life, without all the gratuitous sex that is.

Ever since I decided NYC is where I want to be and editing is what I want to do, everything else seems to fall far short. The problem is, I haven't done an internship in my college career. It's kind of hard to take off for 3 months to do an intership when you must have a job with insurance. Even before my kidney rejected, it never seemed like a feasible option for me. I fear my lack of internship might just screw me over when trying to get a job. So if anyone out there knows of somewhere in New York that I can work, please let me know! :]

Now, some of you may be thinking the same exact thing my parents are thinking: Are you crazy?!?! You don't have any kidneys!! This is true, I do not have any kidneys, and maybe I am crazy, but the good news is I'm covered under Medicare and they do have dialysis in NYC (I assume anyway. There's no way a city of 8 million has 100% kidney function). Sometimes I think that I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it, there's no need to jump the gun and jinx myself, but the fact of the matter is, I've thought it through and I have a plan- a tentative plan- if I do gain employment there. And at the risk of the aforementioned jinxing, I'm not disclosing said plan as of yet.

For now I'm just studying for two tests, writing a take home final, editing and putting together a writing portfolio, and doing an as-yet-to-be-determined final project. Then I'm done with my college career and I can proudly wear my black cap and gown and red stole of gratitude on May 5th & 6th as I walk in not one, not two, but three graduation ceremonies. That's right, three.

Founder's Day

2011-03-06T17:06:00.001-08:00

I've been feeling rather inadequate lately, for a lot of silly reasons. I've been trying to figure out how to overcome these feelings of inadequacy but alas, have yet to figure out a solution. Life is just frustrating sometimes and it takes a time or two before those frustrations dissipate. To worst part is, it's just the devil who is producing these feelings. I have no real legitimate reason to feel inadequate, everything I'm doing right now is up to par- even midterms!- so I'm just being ridiculous is what it boils down to. Maybe the solution is something that's right in front of my face, I just refuse to see it because that's what I've become. Perhaps the things I think will help me feel more adequate will really just make me feel worse and end up being a mistake in the long run. Maybe I need to stop over-analyizing and just get on with what I know deep down in my heart will make these feelings go away. In the words of P!nk, "Welcome to my silly life."

In other news, it was Founder's Day this last week. What is Founder's Day? you ask? It's the commemoration of the founding of the University of Utah, which was founded on February 28th, 1850. This year was the 161st anniversary of that founding. The Alumni Association holds a Founder's Day dinner every year in honor of this blessed event. This is the greatest night of the year. The dinner is usually at one of the Americas, either Little or Grand, they honor outstanding alumni and honorary distinguished alumni, cool and famous people that have graduated from the U. come to the dinner, they award the Founder's Day scholarship to a deserving student... it is all around a great night.

This year, one of the alumni being honored was Senator Bob Bennett. He is a "Distinguished Scholar" in the Hinckley Institute of Politics now that he's completed his tenure in the Senate, so she came and spoke to some of us students at a lunch on Wednesday. Instead of getting up and rambling on about his political beliefs, Senator Bennett opened the floor to questions from us. It was neat to hear this alumni talk about Utah 60 years ago, before the age of computers, when tenured professors were the only ones who taught classes. It was enlightening to hear him speak on politics, call Bill Clinton the best politician he's ever met. He is a great man and I truly believe that he's always tried to make the best decisions for Utah while in the Senate.

Thursday night was the actual Founder's Day celebration at Little America. Kasi and Becky came and picked me up and we went to the hotel. Waiting for the elevator in the parking garage, we realized President Thomas Monson was standing there with a small group of people. He was so nice, he let all of us get on the elevator first, and held the door so we could all get off. The funniest part is, I went to lunch with my parents a few weeks ago at Little America, and when we were leaving, we say President Monson waiting for the elevator in the parking garage when we left.

The dinner was fabulous- petite filet mingnon, salmon, fresh green beans and new potatoes- and the alumni honored were incredible. Besides Senator Bennett, Fred Lampropolous was honored, Robert Gay was honored ("I startted college at BYU and immediately transferred to Utah."), and Dr. Adams, who was a VP at Utah and really furthered the cause for black women to be able to get an education. The honorary alumni honored were Bill and Gene England, of England Trucking, which made one billion dollars last year. All the stories of the alumni were inspiring, and as I sat at that table, freezing because I wasn't wearing a sweater over my dress, I thought to myself, "I hope I do great things with my life so that one day, I can be the distinguished alumna being honored at Founder's Day." After the dinner, as SAB was handing out favors to the attendees, my friend Dan Brinton told me he thought the same thing. Perhaps one day, we'll be honored at Founder's Day together, Dan.

The worst part of the evening though was at the end, when the members of Student Alumni Board who had attended the dinner were standing around in the foyer of the Grand Ballroom, refusing to leave because many of us were graduating seniors, and this was our last Founder's Day as a student. It was sad, and for the very first time this school year, I was sad about graduating. The very best thing, though, was on Wednesday, when John Fackler, SAB Advisor, told me the letter of recommendation he wrote me for Beehive Honors Society was the easiest and saddest letter he'd ever had to write. When I asked him why, he told me "It was the easiest because I have so many great things to say about you. It was the saddest because I realized you're graduating." Thanks John!

For now, I just need to focus on graduating, getting a kidney, and writing my first best-selling book. Graduation is in less than 8 weeks. My announcements came in the mail already, I've finished up all my midterms, and there is only 7 more weeks of class. And then I can begin work on my life goal of becoming a Distinguished Alumna of the University of Utah.

Oh So Tired of Being Sick

2011-02-08T12:22:00.000-08:00

Apparently, I have a Staph infection. I say "apparently" because this morning at diaylsis the nurse drew 4 blood cultures for the appropriate diagnostic tests. Then they gave me a cautionary dose of antibiotics just in case. And now I sit here in disbelief because, seriously???? I already don't have any hemoglobin, and now I have a Staph infection? I mean, is somebody kidding me?

I've got THE WORST case of senioritis EVER, it's hard enough to go to class as it is. Now, between the hemoglobin and Staph, it's going to take a miracle for me to make it to all 8 class times in a week. Luckily, I have amazing professors who know about my situation and are willing to work with me. But that doesn't change the fact that this is stupid and I'm tired of being sick, and sick of being tired.

But I will not give in. I will graduate in May (my parents already bought me a graduation present so....) and I will not get less than a B in any class, except maybe math. I can do this. I know I can. At least I think I can. I think I can. I think I can....

I should add that there was a bit o' good news out of dialysis this morning. My monthly lab values came back and my potassium is too low! That means I can have a banana or orange juice again! At least for a little while. And my ever elevated phosphorus is coming down too. This was all good news, and Janet was very proud of me. I guess it wasn't all bad.

Runnning Down Street, Knife in Hand

2011-02-02T11:52:00.000-08:00

The title of this post equates to a metaphor. I am not literally running down the street with my Henckel-Santoku in hand. What I am doing is living dangerously, counting my chickens before they hatch, disregarding the present and thinking only of the future. I am, of course, talking about the new "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie. Gasp! Twist! I am also, of course, just kidding. I'm talking about GRADUATION. It is the only thing on my mind, all the time.If I could will May 6th to be here any faster, it would be here in an hour.

For a really long time, I dreaded graduation. So much so that I was going to apply to graduate school just so I could continue to be a student. I was even considering applying to three different program types. That's how freaked out I was about graduating from college. But can you blame me? I mean, I have been in college for nearly 10 years. Not 10 years straight, but on and off for a decade, it's been my scene. (no, I don't consider hospitals my scene) I was scared because I had no idea what to do once I wasn't a student anymore. I'd decided that being a student was what I was good at. The real world, well, it's not exactly what they make it out to be on MTV. It's harsh and real and it kind of sucks.

But then I started school again after I should have already graduated. (Thanks for that, kidney!) And all I wanted to do was be done already. I thought about all my friends at commencement last year, and how I almost have no friends graduating this year because they all did last year, and it was sad. And that's when I knew, I was done. I was over college. There has been very little that I haven't done in my college experience, so I can't even be sad about graduating without having done X, because X doesn't exist in my world. (take that math nerds! X does not exist!)

I was 4th in command of the student body at Utah, I lived on campus, I was front and center for the greatest college football season Utah has ever had, I've been to games in 4 away stadiums, I've been a student leader, a volunteer, sat on University committees, made friends, made enemies, worked on campus, failed math, passed math, had my paper given to a class of English majors so they'd know what to do if writing an autobiographical essay. I've been presented on the field at a football game, planned Homecoming, received scholarships, got freaked at Black Pumpkin Affair, planned University wide parties, sat in Coach Whittingham's office, had Boylen call me by name and exchange pleasantries in a crowded concourse at Rice-Eccles. I've had classes in at least 10 different buildings on campus, accidentally ridden the green shuttle, helped raise a record breaking amount of food and money for the Utah Food Bank, participated in Project Youth and Officer's Hollow, shook hands with Spence Eccles, Ron McBride, Frank Ladyen, and LaVell Edwards on the same night, and shook hands with President Michael Young on two separate occasions. I've been in ASUU, SAB, and LDSSA, a University Staffer and Student at the same time, driven to Vegas for the Mountain West Conference Tournament, gone to the Rose Bowl, rushed the field, joined a sorority for 5 whole minutes, and had my picture on si.com as a "College Football Super Fan".

I think I've had a pretty full college experience. All intermingled with real world life, because life as a transplant/dialysis patient never goes away. Now I'm ready to just be a person. Not a college student, not the future of tomorrow, just a person who graduated from college and is now working to make the world a better place. Okay, maybe I won't be working to make the world a better place, but I'll be working to make the books the world reads better edited, and I'll be writing so the world doesn't have to read rubbish like "Twilight".

May 6th is only 93 short, or long, days away. And Mitch Albom is speaking at commencement.

* * *
Today, I went to the University Staff Council meeting to be "recognized" for being awarded the first ever Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield Staff Council Scholarship. They gave me a Publishers Clearing House style check and I had my picture taken with Jason from Regence. It was sort of embarrassing. but I got a big check out of it, and a scholarship which helped pay for my tuition/books. The big check is definitely going on the mantle piece when I get home.

* * *
"February continues to make its case for "least useful month."- Damian Dayton. Thanks for that Damian, I completely and utterly agree. February is the worst. Happy pre-March everybody!

Reflections... Nope. That's a lame title.

2011-01-10T12:05:00.001-08:00

In one of my favorite Puff Daddy songs, the last line of his rap states "It's got ta get better because it can't get no worse". That is exactly my sentiment about 2010. 2011 has to be better because it can't possibly be any worse than 2010 was. That' snot to say 2010 was horrible... nah I take that back, it was horrible. It was a terrible, excruciating, at times annoying 12 months that I do not wish to repeat. Here is the year in review so as not to repeat the same mistakes twice.

January: The first, and definitely worst, month of the year should've been a clue to me that things weren't going to to so well for 2010. I has such high hopes: finish out my senior class VP assignment in ASUU, Senior Class Gift, the perfect class schedule, graduation, London study abroad, then, who knows? The world was my figurative oyster. Instead, I went to 2 days of class and got so sick I ended up in the hospital and had to drop my classes. The 30th was my first day of dialysis.

February: I really don't remember much of Februrary because I think a lot of it was spent in the hospital. I remember waking up once in the hospital not knowing how I got thee. (Apparently I had a seizure at home) and then there was the other time my parents were gone and I was becoming ademic. Liz was going to take me to the ER, but it got too bad and we had to call for an ambulance. That was not good. And that's really all I remember about February.

March: Several irritating things happened in March. First, I started the transplant process. You might think this should have been joyful, but it wasn't. Mostly because the transplant process is a pain in the butt, especially when no one seems to know what's happening. Second, there was the blood issue. My hemoglobin kept dropping inexplicably and everyone was freaking out about it but me. After a short hospital stay for a "blood study"- during which some guy performed a bone marrow biopsy with out giving me any anesthesia, not my favorite thing ever- I got a panicked call from the hospital telling me I needed to come up immediately and be checked in, but they wouldn't tell me why. I felt fine, so I ate Sunday dinner with my family and then headed up there, only to wait for an hour and a half until they had a room for me. It turned out I had a mild staph infection (and yes, I understand the severity of staph infections) and needed to be treated for it with intravenous antibiotics.

April: I managed to stay out of the hospital in April. My hemoglobin was still low and no one still could figure out why. I met with Dr. Nelson, a transplant surgeon, because it was time to take out my rejected kidney. He was a great surgeon and I enjoyed working with him. The surgery was scheduled for May 7th. My favorite part of April was when I got called to the transplant office to meet with Dr. Rafael. He came into the patient room wearing jeans and a fitted zip up sweater/jacket. I enjoyed that. Then he proceeded to tell me and my mother that they were afraid I had PTLD, a form of post-transplant lymphatic cancer. I naturally started laughing because I knew I didn't have cancer. I'd been pretty sick, but not cancer sick. So until they ruled PTLD out, I couldn't be put on the transplant list. Dr. Nelson would take out a few lymph nodes when he performed the nephrectomy in May and they'd make sure I was cancer free. The best part of April, though, was the birth of my nephew Zachary Thomas. He's such a cute lil' buddy!

May: May is when things started to get better. After Dr. Nelson removed the rejected kidney, I was on the up and up. It only took me a week to recover from the surgery and I was going out with my friends and shopping with my sister and actually keeping down most of the food I consumed. The results of the lymph node biopsy came back "unremarkable" which means "You were right Sarah, you do not, in fact, have cancer."

June: The wedding month saw my life start on the up and up again. This was when things went from really horrible to not so bad. Mehgan returned from her mission, Jamey got married, I went on a little vacation to Park City- but is it really a vacation when you are going back and forth from Salt Lake to PC every day?- and I went back to work (see blog entry "Returning Home"). I can't remember anything bad about June, at least in my life. I was gaining weight because I was finally eating and not being malnourished. I suppose it was a 2 way street.

July: I finally got transplant listed in July. 4 months after the process started, I was finally on the list. With only 6-12 months as an average waiting time, I had so much to look forward to. I was back at work with 400+ hours of sick time, studying for the GRE, and registered for fall classes. July was not to shabby.

August: It started out great with a vacation with the Alva's in Southern California. A week of beach time and one singular night of pedicures and shopping was a nice relief from the rest of my miserable life. The day we got back I got sick. Really sick. I ended up in the hospital (of course my parents were across the country taking Tim and Corinne to grad school in Boston) and missing an entire week of work. I was having a diabetes related incident, and I'm fairly certain my insulin got too hot on the trip and was therefore bad when I put it in my insulin pump. The hospital stay resulted in me not being able to take the GRE, and not cancelling it 3 days in advance, thereby I have paid $240 for the GRE and not taken it once. I started school on the 23rd only to find I hated all my classes. But they were all necessary so I figured I'd make the best of it. Besides, it was almost my 2 favorite seasons: Football and Fall.

September: 9/2, 2004 Fiesta Bowl rematch. Utah v. Pitt. Utes prevailed once again in an overtime nailbitter. It was awesome and I rode the football revelry all the way until 6:15 the next morning when my mom told me my little brother had testicular cancer. Yep, things just got worse. Tim and his pregnant wife had been in Boston for a month for his combined Masters/Ph/D program. It was his first day of grad school and he was turning 25 in 3 days. I mean, really? Luckily, the cancer was isolated to one side, and he caught it extremely early, so he had surgery to have the infected testicle removed, and opted to have CT scans every three months. He'd moved on in about 3 weeks, so I figured I should too. The rest of September was a blur of classes, homework, and football.

October: This is definitely the best month of the year, no matter what happens. It was my birthday, I turned old, Fall Break, Steph's wedding, more football, and other things I can't really remember. School while on dialysis was harder than I thought it would be but I was surviving. Mallory and I went to the Utah/Air Force game in Colorado which was great fun. I was stuggling through life, and classes, but was making it.

November: Well let's see, there was the horror of the 6th when Utah got killed by TCU, and the repeat horror of the 13th when Utah got creamed by Notre Dame. Then it was the start of the Rivalry Week Food Drive and busy-ness ensued. There was the great "blizzard" of 2010 that closed schools the frenzied people and saw record sales of non-perishable foods and bottled water. The snowpacalypse dropped a total of 3 inches on the Salt Lake Valley. Everything returned to normal the next day. Then it was Thanksgiving and Utah beat BYU by one point. All's well that ends well.

December: I love Christmas time. It's unfortunate that it has to come during finals time so no college student can enjoy the beauty of the season. Finals really weren't that bad. I sold my math book back for less than 1/3 of what I paid for it, and the instant I walked out of my math final I said to myself "I shouldn't have sold my book back". I was right. I failed math. And seeing that E on my transcript really almost ruined Christmas for me. Especially because it came on the heels of Utah beating itself and thereby losing to the Boise State donkeys. But I got over my depression in time for Christmas. which was lovely, and after finals were over, I moved into a house in the Aves with my friends. Then I got a pedicure and flew to Newport Beach for New Years with my family. Like I said, all's well that ends well.

So let's not do that again. I'm happy to report that so far, 2011 is off to a banner start. I have a new nephew already this year, spent a week in California, and have had 3 days of class without getting sick. So far, 2011 is a success. May old acquaintance be forgot....

An Open Letter to my Brothers

2010-12-29T13:16:00.000-08:00

Dear Tom & Andy,

I would like to start by apologizing for my lack of communication these last 12 years. As you know, I've been busy being sick and going to school and making a general irrelevance of my life. I know you know all this already, it's not like you're not paying attention, but I just needed to say it in case you didn't know. When I say "general irrelevance", I'm speaking broadly. Not everything I've done since 1999 has been irrelevant, per se. I helped the hungry in Utah this fall by participating in the food drive... between 2006 and 2008 I made hundreds of people happy by producing beautiful wedding flowers... among other things. I think the phrase "general irrelevance" is pretty accurate now that I think about it.

Anyway, I've been thinking about you guys a lot lately. I usually do at this time of the year, with the big three upon us. Christmas usually isn't that bad, and Andy, your birthday is pretty bearable because it's New Years Day and napping helps, but the 6th, that day is the worst. It's hell leading up to it, pretending nothing is wrong when in reality, every thing is wrong and every waking thought is taken up by either thinking about it or trying to come up with things to prove you're not thinking about it all the time. When January 7th rolls around, it's a relief, because it's a full 365 days until I have to deal with January 6th again.

As I've been thinking about you these last few weeks, I've been recalling the last time we saw each other. I just want to tell you that if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't let the last thing I said to you be "Do you need anything else out of the bathroom? I need to get in the shower." I mean, I was 16, so I was pretty self involved, and how was I supposed to know that I wouldn't see you again? I couldn't have predicted that you wouldn't come back from California, well, at least not in a state that we could converse. I didn't know that in a weeks' time, a tragedy of this magnitude would knock my world off its axis forever. That is a little dramatic, I'll admit. Maybe not forever, but it certainly changed things. No, if I had it to do over again, I'd tell both of you that I love you, and nothing could ever change that. I'd tell you Tom, that that one night we went and did your Christmas shopping, and went to Alberto's to get chips and gaucamole was one of the funnest nights I'd ever spent with you. And Andy, I'd tell you how sorry I am for being so rude to you when you came home. Then I'd make you cookies to take on your trip and I'd stand in the lane and watch you drive away and I'd cry because you were the best brothers and I wasn't going to see you again in this lifetime.

But I didn't know that, and the self involved 16 year old that still creeps around inside of this considerably more considerate 28 year old is sorry for her ignorance, ignorance on so many levels. I wish I could say that I was making you proud, but I literally failed dummy math Tom, and I think I might be racist against Asians, so I will not learn the Japanese language for you Andy. But I'm gonna write a book, and it's gonna be good, and it'll get published, and I'll go on a book tour and be a New York Times Bestselling author, and then maybe you can be proud of me, having finally done something relevant in my life. And you can tell the people you're with that yep, that's my little sister.

I'm sorry I was a bratty little kid, and bratty tween, and a bratty teenage, and I'm sorry it took until I was 23 for me to realize that there are people in this world besides me. And I'm sorry you had to leave life so soon, and that there were so many things you missed out on in a physical presence, though I'm confident you were around spiritually. I hope you know I'm trying to be a good person, and even though I think I fail at it more than I succeed, I am trying. I hope you know I love you, and even though I think about you less often than I should, you're always there and the influence you, and your premature death have had on my life have changed me for the better. I know it was sketchy there for a while, it looked like I'd let it affect me the wrong way, but I managed to pull through, and now I'm trying to do things for the better.

I only meant well, of course I did. You say it was all for the best, well of course it was. This is just what we needed, He decided this... He decided this, so it must be the right thing. I still miss you, and I still hurt sometimes because of it. At least I can take comfort in knowing you'll be there to greet me when I'm done here.

I love you, brothers.

Love,
Sarah

Long Live the Magic We Made

2010-12-20T13:59:00.000-08:00

Back in 2009, right after I started this blog, I wrote about moving out of our house on 1200 East, the house where I'd lived with my friends for a year and a half, the place we'd had the time of our lives, witnessed the Undefeated Season of '08, the place we learned you really can't trust a ginger. We didn't know it then, but that day at the end of July marked the end of an era. It was the last time Lacey, Mehgan, Steph, and I would live together. Despite all the singing of "Reunited and it feels so good", life inevitably marched on without checking with us first. I lost my kidney, Mehgan came home, Steph got Janson, and married, Lacey found new roommates.

Our "Reunited" tour ended before it even began

Then November 2010 happened. A dinner at Zupas and an idea turned into a dedication, a house hunt, a lease signing, a roommate search, and a move. Now three quarters of the old band is back together again with a few new members. We're like The Eagles, or Destiny's Child. Lacey, Mehgan, and I moved into a lovely Avenues Victorian last weekend, along with Lucy, who lived with Lacey for the last year in 2 different Aves houses, and Laura, who is the cousin of a girl in our University LDS ward. The house is filthy dirty, and sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't have just been worth it to pay Molly Maids the $64 an hour they wanted to clean the place. But we're back together again, even though we miss Steph and wish she could be there too, and that's what makes all the difference.

A year and a half ago we marked the end of an era. Last weekend we saw the start of an age. It will be a new age (no pun intended.... but it was rather good) and a different age then before, but it will be just as good, filled with new people, new learning experiences, but the same humor, dance parties, and cooking that made our first tenure as roommates so fantastic. I think important things will happen during this age; college graduations, acceptance into grad programs, unions formed, MLA will figure it all out, a transplant, maybe... the possibilities are endless. I don't know exactly what will happen, but I do know it will be great. And there will be a lot of laughing, a lot of chocolate chip cookies, a lot of mood lighting in the dining room when one of us is trying to "hang out" with a good-looking fella, and a lot of love.

"We will be remembered."

The Month of Thanks-Giving

2010-11-02T12:58:00.000-07:00

I've noticed that I've had a really bad attitude lately. I mean, like, extremely bad. I realized this on the bus the other day and as I sat in my seat, I was ashamed of myself. I think I get so caught up in the things I want but don't have that I forget to remember the things I do have that a lot of people don't. I decided right then and there on the 213 that I needed to, in the words of Cher from "Clueless", make over my soul. So in an effort to avert my recent flow of negativity and help me have a better attitude, I'm going to post something I'm thankful for every day this month. November is, after all, the month we give thanks in America, and the goal here is to adjust my way of thinking so I can remember how great my life is all year long, even when it's really not ideal (like now. No kidneys is so not ideal. But I'm working with it.) So if you like to read this silly blog, check back a few times this month as I update this post with little nuggets of gratitude. One thing I'm always thankful for is you, the reader, who actually reads what I write on here.

I am grateful for:
November 1st- Taylor Swift's album "Speak Now" and my friends Jamey and Mehgan who were born on this day in different years in the 80's.
November 2nd- America, Apple Pie, and the end of election campaigns (for 2010). Vote for Elle!
November 3rd- My modernism professor, who can successfully incorporate a "Jersey Shore" or "The Walking Dead" reference into every lecture, thereby making a completely uninteresting class briefly interesting.

November 4th- Parents who will give the shirt off their back and their very last dollar to someone else who is in greater need than they. And for my niece Molly, who turns 6 today.

November 5th- Being a UTE! No matter the outcome of a season, a game, or a championship, I will always be true to my school and will be forever a Ute.

November 6th- my bed.

November 7th- Daylight Savings Time. I needed that 12 hours of sleep last night.
November 8th- The Utah Food Bank and the opportunity I have to serve my community through them.
November 9th- My very best friends: Mehgan Alva, Lacey Collom, and Stephanie Alva-Rigby. These girls are amazing and I don't know where I'd be in life without them.
November 10th- There only being 7 more times I have to go to my modernism class, 11 more times I have to go to my editing class. and 12 more time I have to go to math. (hopefully, only 12 more times I have to go to math FOREVER!!!!)
November 11th- My insulin pump. We've been together for a year, and my HGA1C has gone from 11-6.5. Even though I tell it once a day that I hate it, I'm glad it's helping keep my diabetes under control. And I'm grateful for all the veterans. Thanks for keeping our country free and safe.

November 12th- Antibiotics and health insurance that makes the co-pay for them only $3.

November 13th- Eclairs and the redeeming power of chocolate. And for the undying optimism of one Daniel Shiflett. Even when I've thrown in the towel, he still believes. But I still love my Utes.

November 14th- My wardrobe. And my exquisite shoe collection. And Boden, for making it possible for me to look good on Sunday's. (Yes, this is all a bit materialistic and absurd, but it's true. I am very grateful for these things.)

November 15th- Amazing Sunday's that lead to excellent Monday's which generally equal phenomenal weeks. (and it did. This was the beginning of the best week ever!)

November 16th- WE GOT THE HOUSE!! I'm moving back to the Avenues after finals are over!

November 17th- Heaters. I spent 3 hours outside this afternoon and man, I was sure cold when I finally got in Mehgan's car. That heater was my new best friend.

November 18th- Thursdays. Ah yes, they are the gateway to the weekend.

November 19th- My family. They're pretty amazing and I sure do love them!

November 20th- The Utes besting SDSU and completing my best week ever.

November 21st- Faith. I'm grateful everyday that I believe in something that I know in my heart, mind, and soul is true. It guides my life and I'd be lost without it.

November 22nd- Volunteer opportunities that allow me to meet State of Utah legendary football coaches, basketball coaches, and business men. It's pretty cool to stand in a stadium and shake the hand of the guy it's named after.

November 23rd- Impending "blizzards" that freak everyone out, get me out of work 5 1/2 hours early, and don't actually amount to anything more than 3 inches of snow.

November 24th- Generous people who will give of their own means to help those in need and for Steph, whom I can always count on to go see silly movies with that I wouldn't see otherwise.

November 25th- Thanksgiving, family, and cranberry salad. I love holidays that are dedicated to good food and togetherness.

November 26th- Great SAB and MUSS Board volunteers, especially Jaime Bowen, TJ McMullin, and Dan Brinton who stood in the freezing temperatures with me for 6 hours to sell t-shirts and collect money for the Utah Food Bank. And for 7-11 hot chocolate with 2 French Vanilla creamers in it.

November 27th- Brandon Burton and his superman moves, for 17 points in the 4th quarter, and for toe warmers. Also for a Utah victory over always arrogant byu and the conviction that I'd rather be an 0-12 UTE than a 12-0 cougar.

November 28th- Sister Cahoon, who in the name of safety made all the soup and brownies for Linger Longer so the committee wouldn't have to travel in the winter weather.
November 29th- The end of the Rivalry Week Food Drive.
November 30th- My life. I have a wonderful family, amazing friends, a fantastic job, the comforts of life, a college education, shoes on my feet, food in my fridge, health insurance, faith, a sense of humor, an iPhone, and people who love me (among other things). I'm very blessed and I have a lot to be thankful for.

This month long blog post- which is probably the longest blog post ever- has really taught me what it's like to be thankful. It did achieve it's goal, as well. I have had a superb month; dwelling on the positive instead of the negative in my life improved everyday life for me and I'm sure my attitude made it easier for people to be around me. I am considering furthering this little project, only not on the blog. Then it would be the longest blog of all time, and I don't want that. Happy Everything!

28 Things I've Done Before 28

2010-10-11T13:20:00.000-07:00

My birthday is this week. I'll be turning the ripe old age of 28. Now that I'm no longer a spring chicken, I thought I'd chronicle some of the things I've done thus far in my life, so that I can start using phrases such as "Back in my day..." and "In my time..." and "When I was your age...". So here we go.

1. Put my feet in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Gulf of Mexico in the same year.
2. Went to and dropped out of culinary school.
3. Was on the front row for Britney Spears on her Circus Tour.
4. Crossed the Pond to return to my motherland.
5. Was pictured on sportsillustrated.com as a "College Football Super Fan".
6. Owned a Kate Spade bag.
7. Was a University of Utah Alumni Association Achievement Scholar.
8. Had an HGA1C of less than 7.
9. Became an "adult" by having my own health insurance.
10. Successfully kept my identity mine.
11. Learned how to play the system and get paid to go to school.
12. Inspired people to action through my life story.
13. Became a true believer in faith.
14. Began my love affair with Apple, Inc.
15. Had a real chef ask for my bread pudding recipe.
16. Buried 2 brothers.
17. Broke my back.
18. Found out who I am.
19. Became a college football fanatic.
20. Met my very best friends.
21. Discovered how much I really, really, dislike curry... and BYU.
22. Truly learned how invaluable my siblings (& parents) really are.
23. Learned the joys of living with 3 small children and how much their imagination can influence my own.
24. Became a florist.
25. Was/is an example of being true to your school.
26. Successfully received and rejected 2 transplanted organs, at different times.
27. Was Senior Class Vice President at the University of Utah, a position I never applied for.
28. Survived.

Maybe next I can do a bucket list: 30 Things to do before I'm 30. At the top of that list will definitely be "Graduate from College" and "Move out of my parent's house again". Happy Birthday to me.

UTAH Football, Re-starting Senior Year, and Hip Hop

2010-08-30T18:30:00.000-07:00

Well here it is. September is upon us... thankfully. I'm pretty sick of summer. I need fall to fill my lungs and breathe new life into my soul. I thrive in the fall; I don't know if it's the change of the season and the fashion- fall fashion happens to be my favorite, all the jeans and sweaters and boots- or the gorgeous colors, or the food, or the football... it's most likely the football. Let's just be honest. I live for college football. On any given fall Saturday, you'll find me in a football stadium, screaming until I have no voice, or in front of the TV, pacing and yelling at the inanimate object in front of me that's just trying to project a picture. My family has never been huge football fans. My parents always held season tickets to that school down south, but we never made a big production out of football. My brothers like football well enough, but I LIVE and DIE by it. I shouldn't be surprised that I'm really the only one in my family who does; I'm also the only one below 5'7, and the only one with blonde hair and blue eyes, among other things. I guess I was always born to stand out from the rest of my family, be it in the smallest capacities.

Back to football. UTAH football kicks off this Thursday night against a 15th ranked Pittsburgh team. This is a 2005 Fiesta Bowl rematch of sorts. I wonder if Pitt is going to be out for revenge because of the embarrassment suffered at the hands of a "lesser" Utah team in a BCS bowl on a national stage. Whatever Pitt brings to the table, UTAH can handle it. The Utes have a talented team this year, and after a 10-3 "rebuilding" year last year and a PAC-10 invite, they're ready to show what this program is capable of. So I'm prepared. I've got my 2010 MUSS shirt and tickets, my UTAH face tattoos, my drum and feather decals on my nails. All I need is a tailgate and Thursday to be here so I can willing lose my voice and feel my most at home in Rice-Eccles Stadium.

School also recently started, as can probably be garnered by the aforementioned fact that college football is about to kick off. I restarted my senior year last week with three classes and a Student Alumni Board meeting. It was fantastic to be back in class and back at the Alumni House doing what I do best: being a student. Oh sure, I'll struggle through math and continue to give my English discussions the silent treatment, but I love being back in class. With only 9 credits this semester I'm trying to hold myself to a higher standard. I figure I should be able to devote the needed time to each class and the assigned schoolwork. Even math, the class where my brain automatically deviates to anything OTHER than the subject matter. Though I'll be on dialysis this semester, I'm not feeling too worried about it. I'm not going to lie, I was unsure after the first day if I'd be able to handle all this, but after the first week, and a morale boosting SAB meeting, I'm pretty sure I can. I would, after all, like this to be my FINAL senior year. This whole "8th year senior" thing is getting a litttttttle old.

And as a final thought, I would just like to say I love Lupe Fiasco. Can't get enough of him and hip hop lately. I'm so gangster it should be illegal. :) "I feel like murder but hip hop just saved my life."

Oh, and no kidney news yet. Just that I'm actually healthy enough to go to school and, more importantly, football games.

Listed!

2010-07-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

As of today, July 26th, 2010, I am OFFICIALLY ON THE TRANSPLANT LIST!!! The next step is just to wait and see what happens. Liz and I have also been enrolled in the Paired Donor Exchange as of today, and since they really want Liz's kidney, they'll work even harder to find someone who is a match with me. I kind of hope the PDE works out... it's a little weird to "hope" someone doesn't make it so that I can have their organ. I suppose it's just the wheel of the world. Nonetheless, I am very excited and happy and relieved to finally be on the list. It won't be soon before long that things will be happening. Today is a good day.

Lately

2010-07-25T17:44:00.000-07:00

I've been writing a lot lately; I don't know why this has suddenly begun. I've been writing poorly lately too, but then again, I don't know if I ever was actually writing particularly well to begin with. What follows are a few of the things I've turned out. Probably not the best, but definitely not the worst.

Burn

Drunken nights involving no liquor
keep me awake as my
imagination runs wild with
unlikely romantic notions.
Sensibility slinks in and hisses:
This life is not a romantic comedy.
There will be no grand declarations
of love. No last-minute-do-or-die
chases to the airport, no undying
adoration after only a weeks time.
The real-life duo of HeartBreak
and Bitter Disappointment are
sure to make a scene and
teach me what it really means
to burn when he sweeps
in and sets fire to my soul.

Poem for A Friend

2010-07-25T17:21:00.000-07:00

I am at a stand still-
inspire me to motion.
Use your verbs, your
thoughts, your tongue,
your soul.
With the Aztec sun
behind you-
become
the unjammed highway
the stream without a dam
the vein without a clot
my heart that nearly stopped.
Become my heart that hasn't stopped.

Returning Home

2010-06-23T20:57:00.000-07:00

This week, I went back to work. June 21st was more than just the Summer Solstice for me this year. It was the day my recent life took a step in the normal direction. I was excited to return to my job. It's not glamorous or particularly prestigious, but I love it. And I love the people I work with. I really lucked out with my position in the Social Research Institute in the College of Social Work. My bosses in SRI held my job for me for 6 months while I was too sick to work. My colleagues in the CSW donated their vacation hours to me so I could get paid while I was out. They donated so many hours, I was set up to get paid for nearly 6 months, and Jennifer had to turn people away because so many hours had already been donated.

I didn't get much work done on Monday. It was my first day back and Norma wanted to hold a "Welcome Back Coffee Hour" for me. I don't drink coffee but who was I to deny her? She seemed so excited to have me back... so we had a coffee hour. People came down and ate bagels and put hazelnut flavoring in their coffee and made the SRI lobby smell fantastic. And we talked and I answered questions and had people look at me with a look that spoke more of amazement than pity. The rest of the afternoon consisted of those who couldn't come to the coffee hour stopping by my desk to say mostly the same things: CSW employee "Sarah! It's so nice to have you back! You look great!" Me: "Thank you! It' really so nice to be back." Tuesday continued much the same, except for this time there was no coffee hour or hazelnut flavoring.

Today I took a FedEx package to the drop box in BEH next door to my office. As I walked through BEH, and past Psych bulletin boards and Chronie stands, I realized how much I had truly missed being on campus. I had spent all day everyday on the U of U campus for the past two years, and it had felt strange when I got sick because I wasn't there all the time. I didn't realize how strange it was until I actually returned. It was like returning home. If I could maneuver it, I would walk all the way around campus. I'd visit every building: The old, graceful buildings of President's Circle, the mid-century gems of OSH and MBH, the more recent, modern WEB and LNCO. I'd spend time in the Union, eat at Chartwell's and visit all my friends in ASUU. I haven't seen the office since all the new furniture has been in... I'd go hang out in the library and saunter around UMFA and take in the art. But I don't have the energy to climb the hills and stairs of my fair campus yet, so I'll have to wait. In the meantime, I'll walk downhill past the Field House to the TRAX station, and gaze at the football stadium and dream of September, and the day I can walk up HPER Highway again.

Nine hours at work doesn't feel so long anymore. I'm home. Home sweet home.

Life Without Kidneys

2010-05-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I need to change the title of my blog to "The Best 9 Years" because I did not graduate this Spring and so it will be 9 years since I graduated from high school when I finally (here's hoping!) graduate from college. Things didn't exactly go as planned this year. I was supposed to finish my senior year, walk at commencement, and then fly to London for the study abroad I've been trying to go on for 3 years. Instead, my transplanted, and only, kidney rejected and failed in January. I had to drop my perfect class schedule, relinquish my position as Senior Class Vice President, go on Family Medical Leave at work and move out of my house in Officer's Circle.

Everything changed in January, and I became very angry and bitter because I hated it. I hated my life and everything about it. I started back on dialysis, something I vowed never to do again, and had multiple hospital stays throughout February. I was really sick, and my poor attitude and self pity didn't help the situation much. I ignored text messages and didn't return phone calls. I never checked facebook and when I did it just made me mad, all those people and their happy, healthy lives thinking they had real problems because their phones weren't working. I was really mad at my life because this was supposed to be my year and now it was all shot to hell. I didn't want visitors, I didn't want friends. I wanted to be left alone in my self loathing. It's easier to feel sorry for yourself than to face your problems and try to solve them with a positive attitude. At least that's what I led myself into believing.

I thought I'd get another transplant quickly. I had a donor (my wonderful sister Liz) and was only 27, so why should my medical team wait? Well, just because I had a donor doesn't mean she was a match. I know, you're thinking "But it's your sister, how can she NOT match??" My first kidney was donated by my brother Ben. My body developed antibodies against his DNA because I had his kidney. Being siblings, Liz and Ben share the same DNA, so those antibodies in my blood make her incompatible.

So I waited. And waited. And waited. I watched the deadline for London study abroad applications pass by, knowing I couldn't go. I endured hospitalizations and bone marrow biopsies and numerous tests to rule out diseases I knew I didn't have. I kept on with dialysis and had blood transfusions and wondered if I'd made the right decision leaving Dr. Cline's care a I began to feel like my medical team was... incompetent. On the same day I should have been graduating from college I had my transplanted kidney taken out. My mother spent her Mothers Day sitting with me in my IMCU room at the University Hospital. As it turns out, that kidney was necrotic (meaning there was dead spots in the tissue of the kidney) and was likely what was making me so sick. The lymph node Dr. Nelson removed was unremarkable and ruled out the PTLD the team was afraid I had. PTLD is a form of post-transplant lymphatic cancer.

Since the surgery, I feel much better than I did before. I've even been out a few places with my sister and friends since the incision stopped hurting. (Word of advice: if you're thinking about going to see "Robin Hood", don't waste your time or money. It's awful.) I've registered for fall classes and The MUSS and I will be crushed if I can't return to school August 23rd. In a week or so I'll be cross matched with my sister again because my antibodies have changed, hopefully enough that she is now a match. I'll also be cross matched with one of my best friends, Stephanie, to see if she's a match. If all goes well, we could be having a transplant this summer. If neither Liz or Steph are matches, we'll enter the paired donor program, which cross matches you and your potential donor with others who are in a similar situation to find a match and a kidney for you.

For now, it's life without kidneys. Dialysis 3 times a week at 6 a.m. Being bored every day with nothing to do but take naps (it's not that great, trust me). Sitting, waiting, wishing, hoping for a miracle, and a new, working kidney, and renting movies from iTunes while I wait.

This is for McKenzie

2009-10-07T11:19:00.000-07:00

It has obviously been sometime since I last posted something on this thing. Life has been a bit busy since school started in late August. Besides classes and my job, Student Alumni Board and ASUU take up most of my time. Erica and I managed to pull off the most successful Homecoming Week the University of Utah has ever had. It was monumental, we had an actually crowd for the Pep Rally, which means I kept my promise to Coach Whittingham, we sold out the dance, 1200 people got in and many more didn't. Everything went off without a hitch, no incidents at the dance, alcohol related or non, and even though SongFest ended 25 minutes ahead of schedule, Coach Boylen saved the Pep Rally with his amazing emcee skills. It truly was a REDvolution this year. The biggest yet. Next year's senior class president and vice president have some big expectations to live up to.
Now Homecoming is over and life is slowing down for the moment. I have time to read, time to sleep, time to write, time to breathe. It's a bittersweet ending though, this thing I've spent the last 5 months of my life planning is over, the week I pourred my heart and soul into is done. What's next? It's a bit odd to have time to do homework, and not have 8 meetings every week, and leave ASUU when the sun is still illuminating the sky. I halfway miss the "till 2 a.m." nights and bribing that pizza guy to give me his product so Erica and I didn't starve to death. Luckily, there's still football, the Rivalry Week Food Drive, and lovely things in the Spring to look forward to.
Fall Break is almost upon the U, and everyone I know is extremely grateful for the break. I'll spend my break revising the papers I didn't get A's on (which NEVER happens except now, which makes me wonder what I've gotten myself into). I know it's bad news when MATH is my best class. Somethings gotta change, so I'll revamp over the break and come back with exceptional writing for the rest of the semester. That's the plan at least. There are very few things I dislike more than having to revise and resubmit papers. This is unacceptable and it's pissing me off. I'm better than this. Last fall, the resident Poet Laureate actually gave a copy of my paper to everyone in my class as an example of what to do. I am BETTER than this. I will be better than I have been. Math cannot win, I must excel in what I know, and I know writing. I'll show Straley and Horwitz who they're reading. I don't write B- papers.
Oh, and, McK, since you're the only one who reads this thing, I love my housemates and living in Officer's Circle! We stay up too late and laugh and talk and are all friends. The Hum House is fantastic and I love living there. I'll be rather sad when I have to leave it in May, but I'll go directly to London for 5 weeks which should help ease my suffering.

First Night, New House

2009-08-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

Here it goes. Here I go. Away from comfort and familiarity... to unknown and uncertain. As I sit in my (new) room in the Humanities House I am listening to Chantal Kreviuzak sing "Leavin' On a Jet Plane" and I wish that I could be back in my own bed at my parents house. Or in my own bed in a house with Steph and Mehgan somewhere. But I'm not. Mehgan is in Florida and Steph's in Millcreek and I'm on campus.

It's not that I'm afraid... that's a lie, I'm TERRIFIED. I'm afraid of the unknown that's gaping in front of my life and swallowing the next 8 months of my life. I'm afraid my new roommates are going to be stuck up and elitist. I'm afraid I'll be subpar compared to them. What if I lose touch with all my old friends and don't make new ones? What if I don't make time for things like friendship and dating and fun? "Things can move at such a pace, the second hand just waves goodbye". I don't want that to be my experience in Officer's Circle. I'm afraid it's what I'm going to make it and I'm not sure how to stop that from happening. Plus, I swear the clock said 1:07 five minutes ago. Perhaps it's a sign that I need to slow down, refuse some things that I'm asked to do, leave behind a commitment or two. Or perhaps it's telling me to go to bed because it's one a.m. and it's been a long day, and tomorrow promises to be the same.

Though I'm afraid, I'm excited for the next 8 months. I think good things will happen while I'm here, things that couldn't have happened if I was safe in my own bed somewhere else. I think I'll enjoy a much shorter commute to campus, since I'm already there. I'll have at least 2 new friends in Victoria, my roommate, and Heid, my RA. "Life's what you make it, so let's make ir rock." I hope I'll over come my fear and make this situation the best ever. "La la la la la la la life is wonderful..." For now I just need to sleep.

Changes

2009-07-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

A very wise man once said, "Some things will never change." Well, all my respect to 2Pac, but he was very wrong. Things change all the time. I believe Arby's once stated that "Change is good!". No offense to Arby's (although their roast beef makes me sick) but not all change is good. And you may be wondering what all these pop culture references have to do with anything, well, I'll tell you. In the last month, a lot of things in my life have changed. I find I don't do overly well with change. Though this is going to be a change that will lead to the next adventure in my life, I'm not sure I like it yet.

I've been accepted to live in the O.C. Tanner Humanities House at the University of Utah. This means I'm moving out of the apartment I love, where I've lived the last 15 months of my life. I'm sad to leave it. When I'm home alone, I walk around in the silence of these old walls and take it in. The red accent wall in the living room, the French doors leading to the stairwell, the built-in china cabinet in the dining room, the hardwood floors... I love it here. I don't want to leave, but this is a change I must make and I know that it has to happen. So I'll leave the 2 sets of steep stairs, my lovely black and white couch, and the perfect singing window in my closet (think "Enchanted"). Soon I'll live in an 1870's house that has housed military officers and Olympic Athletes and now the finest students at the University of Utah. 11 strangers, picked to live in a house... find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting real. (Sorry, I can't stop with the pop culture!)

It's going to be a strange world not living with my best friend Stephanie. But we're both doing what we have to do, and between our schedules, we'd never see each other anyway except for when we'll make time to see each other once school starts. I have a lot of on campus responsibility this year (Student Alumni Board, Homecoming Committee, LDSSA Campus Relations, Senior Class Vice President). Between meetings, class, work, and tutoring, it only makes sense to live on campus too. Still, I'm going to miss the dancing in the kitchen, Steph "stretching" as soon as I walk out of my room, watching Disney Channel on Sunday afternoons and laughing at all the jokes... I'll miss it all very much. Just like I'll miss Steph very much.

Sometime change is good. Sometimes change is excellent, exactly what needs to happen, something you can't wait to have happen... that doesn't mean it's always easy. Then again, nothing worth having is ever easy.

Giving In to Peer Pressure

2009-05-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

I finally did it. For years I've resisted "blogging" because I thought it was for married or people with a lot of free time. But my life is such that I am now going to be a "blogger". I'm not married so I suppose this means I've got time... on my hands. Ok, not really, I've got too much to do to actually have free time, or so I think, but this upcoming year is going to be quite the adventure for me so here I go... blogging.
I don't actually even like the word "blogging" or "blogger" or "blogged". Don't ask me why. It's probably for the same reason I don't like the word "flatter" or any of it's cohorts. What that reason is, I don't know, but the word "flatter" is irritating to me. It's like opera or Kenny Chesney, listening to it makes me want to run a cheese grater across my forehead. Back to the topic, I've seen some really neat blogs, and I hope I can make this one fit into that category. If it starts to get boring please let me know so I can make sure I spice things up a bit.
I really considered a blog after I saw my good friend McKenzie Newton's (xoxo!) blog about her life in college. I liked the idea, but my life wasn't that exciting. Then came May and I became Vice President of Senoir Council at the University of Utah and entered the wonderful world of ASUU. I knew the next year of my life would be incredible, between Senior Council, Student Alumni Board, LDSSA, school, and work (and my now apparently non-exisitent personal life) I reconsidered a blog. Then another wonderful friend, Mallory Hill (xoxo!) told me I should start one of these things because she had one and that should be argument enough. My lovely roommate Lacey Collom (xoxo!) is keeping a blog while she's in Africa for the summer, and reading her blog really made me want one of my own. So I gave into peer pressure and now here I am, in the bloggershpere. Hope you enjoy.