Our 1st Kidney Walk

Today was the National Kidney Foundation walk in St. Louis.  It was our 1st time walking, and hopefully will not be our last. It amazes me the number of people who came out to walk for someone who has had kidney disease touch their lives. It rained the entire day, but people still were so happy to be there.

Except for Jim...he was feeling miserable and cold in the rain. His back hurt because of the extra fluids he is carrying, He was able to walk a little bit of the mile walk but then seemed happier to go to lunch.

His last appointment on Thursday the doctor told him (as I have also been telling him) he needs to start walking or at least have more movement during the day. With that in mind, he has started walking around our circle drive with a little detour of heading into the woods to look for mushrooms. It seems though when he starts more movement, then somehow gout sets in. Even with him drinking his tart cherry juice all week, he came home with pain in his left ankle after the walk and is now sitting with ice on it. Such a vicious cycle we just are not able to figure out.

Here are some pictures from the walk. Hopefully when we attend next year, our "Team Jim" will be much larger and he will be able to wear a yellow lei that designates him as a "kidney transplant recipient".

P.S. Thanks Joyce for walking with us along with "Jill's Kidney Beans".

Keeping the Faith

Things for Jim have gotten a lot better. He continues to do well on his dialysis. He has been lucky enough not to have a gout flare up for the past couple weeks. This seems to get him down more than his dialysis does. Since his catheter has been repaired, he gets good drains and fills at night.

Someone recently posted this picture on one of the many Facebook kidney sites that I follow. When you see something like this, it really puts a lot in perspective. No one deserves to have this growing inside them.

A Polycystic Kidney - about the size of a football.

I continue to do searches every day and we continue to get people with questions about donating. We have some friends who are being tested and we continue to keep our fingers crossed that we will someday very soon get that call that will make Jim’s life much easier.

While I was in the waiting room a couple of weeks ago at Barnes, I ran into some friends of mine that were waiting with their family members going through a kidney transplant. Marcia was the mom giving her son Evan her kidney. I knew Marcia from grade school. After witnessing their excitement and actually being able to say hi to Marcia post-op (she looked great by the way), my excitement and faith that this WILL happen is what keeps us going. It may not be as far fetched as we thought…..in fact, hopefully it will be just around the corner.