Good News - Bad News - Other News

Well I haven’t seen any of you coming to rescue Sadie and I from lockdown….and the people that I have talked to told Joan to keep up the good work. Sadie and I are discouraged.

It’s Good News/Bad News with Dan…

Bad News: He is taking a steroid/plasma treatment today. The steroid treatment raises his blood sugar. The plasma treatment raises his blood pressure. The nurses check both frequently and the whole thing is tiring and annoying. He is tired of lying in bed…there is no way he feels comfortable. He is also tired of being in the hospital.

Good News: This is Dan’s next-to-last steroid/plasma treatment. The last one will be Tuesday. They are doing this treatment more slowly so it doesn’t make him so sick. His blood cleansing is going very well. They may shorten the number of these treatments. He is up and walking the halls. He can get in and out of bed by himself. Wes and Sharon McCord stopped by and it was great to see someone from home. Wes’s brother is across the hall with a knee replacement. They are saying that Dan will be released on Tuesday.

Other News:

To answer a question…they took my left kidney. Does that mean I am left with a right-winged kidney? Appalling. There were a couple of funny things in connection with this kidney.

First…as I was in Pre-Op a young person named Heather came in to mark my stomach for the four incisions. The longest is above my navel. Then there are those high left and low left and one on my left side for the surgical instruments. (None of the incisions are very long.) To show it was official she initialed it and put a happy face by her initials.

I was horrified. Those of you who know me know I hate happy faces and I’ve had people (you know who you are) taunt me with happy face gifts etc. I wanted to tell Heather to erase the happy face but then decided not to upset the surgical people just before surgery.

Unfortunately happy face is still on my stomach…close to an incision and covered with clear tape so I can still see it and be annoyed by it.

Second…Dr. Stevens (Dan’s surgeon) keeps commenting on the size of my donated kidney. I guess it was large for a woman’s kidney which was good news for Dan although he complained about it being so big that it pushed against his abdomen. This makes me feel like some kind of freak of nature.

However, Dan is fortunate to have a large, hard-working, Stroup kidney that has worked overtime to bring his kidney functions to normal. That kidney could also go out and drive cattle and bale hay if it needs to.

Other good news….Today is Katelyn Jean’s third birthday which will be celebrated with a horse theme…That’s my girl! Also Drew Anderson has been called up to the majors…to the Milwaukee Brewers….Way to go Drew!

Thank you for your good thoughts and prayers. They are working.