Day 100! - Wednesday, May 16, 2012

My 100 days are over! I don't really feel any different than yesterday, but it's nice to think that I've reached a milestone and am going to be able to move back towards doing normal-ish things again. Abby sent me a happy 100 days picture of us at a more-different 100 days (the 100 days until graduation party Rice threw for the seniors).

Today wasn't terribly exciting. We realized we really need to go to the store, as we're out of milk and therefore we ended up making mac and cheese with just butter and the cheese granules, which is delicious but also probably super fattening. Patrick went out to his parents' house to help his dad with the shelving in the new garage so they can get their garage stuff put away instead of in a big pile in the middle of the garage. I stayed home as more being-alone practice and watched some trashy tv (Ghost Hunters was on SyFy, and that was the most interesting thing on). I did see about 5 minutes of Toddlers and Tiaras, but I think my IQ dropped just from watching those people, so I stopped as soon as I could.

Got my syllabus for my next class, which starts next week. The course itself looks really interesting, but I think the professor seems a bit weird. We have another group paper due as part of this class, but in the syllabus he suggests that instead of your group splitting the paper up into 3 pieces, he wants you to each write a 10-15 page paper and then take the best parts of each and put them into one paper. That seems to me incredibly inefficient.

Going out to coffee with Erin tomorrow afternoon, before she moves away to Dallas. Will be fun!

Day 99 - Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Went to the hospital this morning. My levels still aren't good enough for the line to be taken out, but they were stable enough for Diem to think that I didn't need to be seen again until next Tuesday. I'll be going in for a blood test on Thursday but then going home, and they'll just call me with my results.

Patrick was on the phone most of the day with some conference call, so I had time to keep quiet and do random things I'd put off of my to-do list until today. I took a short nap this afternoon, too.

Patrick went to game night at Jack's tonight and left me alone to test my being-alone abilities. Nothing really happened. I watched some tv and chatted with Claire and Abby online. Also I did a load of laundry, because clean things are okay for me to mess with.

Day 98 - Monday, May 14, 2012

Mom came over to sit with me today while Patrick went to work. Did the Monday newsletter for school, and Mom and I went to Pei Wei for lunch. Or rather, we picked some up and went back home so I could cook mine for longer in the microwave to make sure everything was cooked and dead. I drove for the first time since the transplant to make sure I still remember how to do it and to work my way up into being a normal person again.

Mom left for her dentist appointment right around the same time Patrick got home. Andyr came over around 6 to take me to the HGS board meeting, which took FOREVER and was super super frustrating, mainly because the board is populated by old people who dislike new things. The meeting ended at 10 but Andyr, Tim, and I got cornered in the parking lot by George and we ended up talking for a while about what should be done, and then complaining about how it'll never be able to be done after George left. The gala proposal Christine and I worked on was shot down spectacularly for no good reason other than "we shouldn't think about this until after the show, because we should focus on what we have to do for the show" - and then "well, this proposal is nice, but we really should do this other thing that is totally unrelated because we want to make sure we can seat 800." What? I don't understand how this group is still around with some of the wacky/bad decisions that are made.

Day 97 - Sunday, May 13, 2012

Got up early and went to help Patrick's parents move the last stuff around. Patrick and his dad put shelves and stuff together while I helped his mom go through the last cabinets and pull the final pictures/etc off the walls. Packed up a stack of old records which included "Disco Noel" - complete with dance instructions. I took a nap while the set up the tv, and woke up just in time for them to find out that the tv was broken sometime between unplugging it at their old house and getting it all set up at the new one.

We went over to my parents house after that and played some bananagrams with Mom and Dad before Patrick's parents came over to join us for dinner. We had a joint Mother's Day dinner cooked by the dads that almost ended badly because Dad had forgotten to refill the propane tank on the grill and the steaks didn't get quite done before it ran out. Mine got finished in the oven.

Day 96 - Saturday, May 12, 2012

Patrick woke up super early today, Saturday, May 12, 2012, to go out to do the final day of moving big things in a truck, since his parents should be closing on their old house on Monday. I got up and napped on the couch until Dad got here around 6:45, and then I went back to bed until around 8:30. I sorted through all the newspapers and got Dad to take me to the recycling center and then we went to Einstein's for bagels to take home for a late breakfast. Einstein's was super busy and took way longer than expected, but we had deliciousness to take home after a while. I hid in the corner by the cash register while we waited for our food.

I did a bit of work while we watched some History channel and Dad made me some lunch before Lauren, Claire and Julia came over and we worked on assembling Lauren's ceremony programs for her wedding in a couple weeks. Lauren had the most gigantic and terrifying hole puncher that also put grommets into paper, so after we'd cut out all the pieces, Julia collated, Claire cut ribbon, and I tied ribbons on while Lauren used her giant grommety punching machine.

Claire and Julia had dinner plans so Lauren called Jeff over and the three of us went to Escalante's for crack salsa and un-lettuced flautas on my part. We saw a bunch of people there in bright orange and realized they must have come from the Dynamo game - which was the first game in the new fancy stadium. A bunch of them had the Dynamo scarves on and sat on the patio, which I thought was funny since it was like 90 degrees outside.

We went back to our place afterwards and watched Up while waiting for Mikey and Lauren to come over with their stash of bad movies. Then we watched Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla, which is really a very bad movie, and Lauren H. and I wrote out the escort cards for the wedding, completing two tasks in one day! Patrick got home around midnight and went straight to bed, since we have to get up early for more moving.

Day 95 - Friday, May 11, 2012

Last shot was today! It took them a really long time to get me in, and then they tried to take my vital signs twice because they weren't talking to each other, or something. Did my skype date with Candace when I got home. I think things will work out okay eventually at work.

Mom came down and brought over the foundation proposal with finalized amendments and signatures and such and drove me the block over (it's in the office building at Burgoyne and Fountainview, so very close to my place) so I could drop it off. Ended up having an awkward conversation with the man who works there, mainly because he seemed a bit hard of hearing and kept mishearing what I was saying. But everything seems all right on that front.

We went to pick up some bolts/nuts at Home Depot so Patrick could rebuild the closet and hang his monitor now that we finally found a mount that fits it online, and went to Joann's so I could get my fabric for my patron party dress with my fancy Teacher Appreciation coupon. A gigantic storm hit right after we got home, so it was good that we didn't dawdle too much at Joann's. We ended up watching stuff on netflix all evening with candles going just in case the power went out (it didn't).

Day 94 - Thursday, May 10, 2012

Today I got shot #4, which came a lot faster than usual, so while Patrick parked the car, I ended up doing vitals and getting a room, which wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that the ATC in the Mays clinic is like a faraday cage or something and you have zero signal. Saw Diem after getting my shot so she could check for rashes and stuff, and found out that my doctor is going to be leaving to work at a different hospital (in Ohio! far away!) at the end of the summer, so I'll probably get assigned to another doctor. Hopefully I'll be able to get one of the other doctors Diem works with so I can keep seeing her.

Went up to Pope John to do some work and printing for a grant proposal that's due next week. Have a skype meeting with my new boss (the current admissions director, so I do actually know them, which is good for me and having to work from home for a while longer) tomorrow to talk about things. I'm not quite sure what we'll be doing, but hopefully everything will work out.

Did my final "reflections" work for class, so I've officially turned in all my work for my first grad school class. Hopefully all the grades come back okay!

Day 93 - Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Third shot today, which took a while because they needed to check my labs before they gave it to me. Everything was good, especially since my creatinine went down a bit on its own without me needing more fluids in an IV. It's 1.03, so a little lower but still not quite low enough. My tacro was also low so I'm going to take a little more to get it back into the right range.

We watched a couple of episodes of the first season of Buffy tonight. So much terrible 90's fashion and trends. One episode featured a troll pencil. I'm waiting for someone to show up with a Trapper Keeper. Also, so much grunge.

Day 92 - Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Woke up early again for another shot, and got to the hospital around 7:30, hoping that we would be home in time for Patrick's 9:30 conference call. Since all I was doing was getting a shot, it didn't seem like it'd be a difficult thing, but they were really slow, and then the pharmacy was super slow refilling my heparin. Not much else to report for the day.

Patrick's mom came over around dinner to clean since she'd been busy moving the past couple of weekends.

Day 91 - Monday, May 7, 2012

Went super early for blood draw and dressing change today. Saw Diem before getting my vidaza shot - my hemoglobin and platelets were down some, which is sad, but I don't need any transfusions so that's good. My creatinine was a bit high again but not too high (1.06, where normal is 1 or lower), so everything is okay for now. If it goes up again they'll give me some more fluids, probably.

All my shots are in the ATC in the Mays clinic this time because they're doing construction on the other ATCs, which is annoying because it's like a quarter mile walk down a skybridge to get there from the normal clinic building. Shots went fine.

Went to Whataburger on the way home so mom could get a coke and I got fries and a chocolate shake - hooray for calories! Watched some tv and did some work for Pope John while waiting for Patrick to get home. Monday is newsletter day, so I had that to work on.

Day 90 - Sunday, May 6, 2012

Patrick was helping his parents move some more (mainly stuff from the garage and patio today, it sounded) today so I finished up my final project for school while at my parents house. It's really frustrating having to work in a group that has 3 people in 3 time zones, so I'm really glad that I'm done with the group projects. Hopefully there'll be better groups in the next class. The people were okay, but I'd much rather work with people who are not 2 hours off from me.

Mom made brownies for first dinner (Ghiradelli, yum!) and we went to the Bernstein's MASS that Cecilia (the chamber choir I'm in) was putting on. It was really good, and I'm sorry I missed being able to be in it. Halfway through I realized that we sang one of the songs the children's choir sings at Langham. I just didn't know where it was from! One of the girls in the choir that I hadn't really had the chance to talk to much came up to me afterwards when I was looking for Julie and Shelton and asked me if I'd been at Allie's wedding the night before - apparently she was there too and was in the Cinco choir with Allie. Small world!

We went to Jason's for dinner right before it closed and brought it home and ate while Patrick was on his way back. Watched some Mythbusters.

Day 89 - Saturday, May 5, 2012

Today was busy and full of fun things to do. First, Julia picked me up and we adventured to Courtney's apartment for Lauren's bridal shower, where we helped set up, tried to stop Lauren from helping to set up, and moved tables in many different orientations until we figured out how to arrange people best. We'd kept forgetting things (I perhaps was not as prepared as I should have been) and Courtney and Laura kept calling JT and Daniel to bring us things like chairs and CDs. Because it was a scrapbooking party, there was a ton of random paper/scissors/stickers/etc that Courtney'd inherited from someone stacked in a giant pile that I'm surprised didn't fall over at some point.

Since we were asked to bring photos of Jeff and Lauren that we had, and lots of us have been friends for a while, we had lots of repeat photos... especially the "julia, play twister with us" series. I'd gotten lazy when ordering prints from Walgreens, so that's actually the only photos I brought, but other people had other ones. My stickers and bag of personal scrapbooking items was super popular and impressed all the ladies Lauren's mom's age... apparently they thought that owning a lot of scrapbooking supplies in a nice bag equals BEING AWESOME AT SCRAPBOOKING. While I'm not terrible at it, nothing I make looks super professional/neat either.

Went home after helping to pack up some of the paper and stuff, and did my baby bottle of magnesium before Allie's wedding. Since I had two parties I got to wear two of my new nice dresses I bought online since my dresses from before I got sick don't really fit very well. Hooray for gift cards! 

I wore my floppy purple hat to Lauren's shower to get her mom used to the idea that I don't have hair and am wearing a hat to the wedding (her mom's kind of particular, so just wanted to make sure she wasn't going to freak out), but I wore my blonde wig to Allie's wedding, which made for some interesting times. Especially when Whitney sat down in the pew behind us and asked Patrick "Where's Gillian?" I guess the last time she saw me I did have a brown buzz cut kind of haircut, but still. Why would Patrick bring someone else to Allie's wedding?

Got to see a bunch of phils and danced some before the dance floor got too crowded and had lots of fun. I'm super glad I got to go, especially since Kyle's moving to DC in a couple of weeks so it was one of the last times I'll get to see him as a Houston resident, and Payton was in from Dallas but will be starting his Fulbright program in Mexico soon (and I won't be able to visit him there). Alayne and Whitney are both in DC as well, so I will hopefully get to visit them at some point.

My toes are sore from dancing and heels, which I haven't worn in a while. Not much of a use for them at the hospital.

Day 88 - Friday, May 4, 2012

Woke up early and ran out to Cypress today because Patrick took the day off to keep helping his parents move and set up their new house. I spent the day at my parents' working on homework and some stuf for Pope John. Brett was home from UT to take Emily to prom, so I got to see him off in his tux and then I took a nap while Mom went to take pictures. My nap was longer than expected as their limo had a flat tire and was really late so they sat around in the cars with a/c running until it got there.

Went home and set up some final things for Lauren's bridal shower tomorrow. Including finding Twister photos! And finding that my origami vases had failed. Mason jars for the win! Also, I made Patrick take me to Kroger to buy cupcakes after we got home since I hadn't had enough time to make them from scratch.

Day 87 - Thursday, May 3, 2012

Went back to the hospital today and the fluids seemed to work, or whatever else it was, because my creatinine was down back into the normal range, yay! Mom took us out to Buca di Beppo for lunch. Diem told me to do my last bottle of fluids on Saturday and we'll see on Monday what the rest of the counts are. I'll still start vidaza on Monday unless something super weird happens.

Diem did say I can be alone now for a while for small periods of time, like for Patrick to run to the store or something. He did actually run to Kroger this afternoon to get some things like milk and left me here, but I napped for like the whole time he was gone so I didn't really notice.

Did more work on the MPAA project due this weekend; class'll be basically over once this is turned in - afterwards is just "reflections on the course" and such.

Day 86 - Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Did a bunch of work for our final project for my communications class today. We've got a paper and a powerpoint due and while the topic is really interesting, I'm not sure my group is all on the same page. We had a chat online REALLY late tonight that was not very concise but it's way harder for us to collaborate than the other groups, as all of the other groups are all in the same time zone - we're the odd group out and we've got one person in central, one in mountain, and one in pacific, which is really annoying for planning. I'm always staying up late. We went and saw La Cage aux Folles at TUTS tonight and it was REALLY good. George Harrison was playing Georges and sort of showing his age, but everyone else moved around him enough that you didn't notice. The chorus showboys were spectacular, though, and super impressive. They made me feel like a super bad dancer.

Day 85

Claire came over today while Patrick went to game night - it worked out well, since she didn't really want to sit around and listen to the guys play games and I needed a babysitter. We went to DSW to find her some fun shoes for Lauren's wedding that were still minister-appropriate, and she found some awesome blue flowery shoes that looked really exciting. Sad that she didn't get the giant stiletto peacock feather ones, but still fun. Then we went to Dessert Gallery and got delicious cupcakes to-go and brought them back home to eat while watching the season finale of Top Shot. Claire'd never seen it before, but she decided it was better than some of the weird reality shows that are popping up on TV now. Chris the IT guy won and it was very exciting that another non-professional, non-military person won the competition. Still too bad that Gabi got kicked out so early, though.

Day 84

Went in for my blood test and visit before getting my vidaza shots but my creatinine went up again to 1.4, even though I'M DRINKING A TON, so I'm not starting the shots until next week. They've re-ordered the home health liquids for me so I can get 500mL directly into my veins which hopefully will be better at clearing stuff out of my system. So I have the baby bottles again from today until Thursday, and then they'll decide what else needs to be done.

I did get home earlier than usual, though, because I didn't have to stay longer for an extra bag of whatever, so on the way home Mom took me to Target to buy cards for the parties I'm going to this weekend (Allie's wedding + Lauren's bridal shower) and socks for Patrick, who has been running low on socks for a while.

Since we got home at noon, I actually ate a real lunch at home for once (Dad's soup and potato/apple hash) and got the school newsletter done in a reasonable time frame. We watched a couple more episodes of Warehouse 13, and Patrick got home in time to see the end of the one with Jewel Staite and Sean Maher guest starring (from Firefly), and decided that maybe this show is okay and he'll watch it with me.

We went out to dinner with Ryan and Micaela and then to bowling at 300 because we had a groupon that was expiring and we figured that going on a Monday night would be good for me because it wouldn't be crowded or have tons of kids. Apparently we were wrong. There were kids on both sides of us that weren't being controlled by their parents AT ALL and kept running in front of us while we were trying to bowl. Micaela almost smacked one with her bowling ball, which would not have been good for anyone. And their parents were watching them the entire time! Just not saying anything. Some other lady a few lanes over came to talk to one of them and tell them that they can't play ring-around-the-rosie wherever they want, they'll get hit by a bowling ball... it was not a pleasant bowling experience. I did find out that I can bowl about the same left handed as right handed though, as it hurt my line to bowl right handed. We left early without playing our second game because it was so crowded and stressful.

Day 83

Woke up early so Patrick could get out to Cypress to help his parents move furniture. Since I still have my line in, furniture moving is a bad idea for me, so I spent the day at my parents' house, doing homework and watching Mythbusters. Mom took me to Pope John for a couple of hours so I could work on stuff that I can't do from home.

Figured out when Say What is on the radio - 11 am on Sundays - and listened to it with Mom. I wish I was that smart and could figure out those things.

Day 82

I had more visitors today than I've had in months. First, Christine from HGS came over and we discussed planning a fundraising dinner theater thing for the fall since it's the 60th anniversary of the group, and so a good year to start trying to have annual dinner things. It'll be interesting to see if we actually get anything set up and working for this, and if the board approves it, since they are reticent to try new things.

Then Lauren, Claire, Julia, Sarah, and Laura came over for a baking party and Trapped in the Closet watching. It is just as bad as I remembered it being. Hooray part 3 coming out soon! We did make a huge mess of the kitchen, though, which I should remember not to do again.

We went out to dinner after the guys finished gaming and it felt great to be able to be out and also eat at the restaurant I went to without any nausea. Hooray pasta!

Day 81

Kept drinking tons of water today. Not sure how much but it felt like a ton.

Patrick went out to help his dad with electronics/internety stuff at the new house tonight, so Dad came over after work and sat with me. We watched a bunch of Warehouse 13, since Patrick doesn't really want to watch it with me for whatever reason. Maybe he just doesn't want to get into another show?

Day 80

Back at the hospital. I obviously drank a little okay or the drugs are getting out of my system because my creatinine is down to 1.27. Which still isn't great but is much lower than 1.8 and is a pretty okay change in only 3 days. My tacro is still a bit high so they're going to lower it again to where I'm only taking one pill a day. I'm worried that something's wrong but they don't really seem to be.