SPREZZATURA is my favorite word. At its base level, it means nonchalance. It describes the art of doing something difficult with the greatest of ease.
Art without (apparent) effort.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Congratulations! It's a beautiful kidney!

So Terry and Paul are both tucked in at Porter Adventist Wonderful Hospital tonight after an exciting and eventful day. The surgery was completed as planned and Paul was actually in 2 places at once for a little while this afternoon. By now, however, Terry is working on making this kidney his own. We are hoping that it will serve him well and make his life long and healthy. I think it will help him see the bright side of every story, laugh a great deal, and be able to pass Paul's optimism on to everyone he touches! The first report is that he is the Pee King!

Paul still has his left side label where the kidney once lived and is very thirsty. But he has taken his first walk and is happy and relieved as am I.
From this day forward, we can all be content with getting up in the middle of the night!

Pictures to come from Paul and Terry........
Ciao,
Joyce

Catch ya' on the flip side

Thanks everyone, for all the good wishes and prayers. I'll be checking out for a few hours. Ciao.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011


Today was education day, combined with final exam day. I was poked, prodded, x-rayed, questioned, and weighed for the last time before tomorrow's surgery.

This is a photograph of the surgeon who will pull out my kidney tomorrow. I've always wanted to get a photo of a doctor sitting on the exam table. Today was my lucky day.

Someday I'll get the photos all posted for viewing. But probably not tonight . . . .

A note from Terry

Terry has a blog on the site CaringBridge, under the name Terry Tyler. I'm copying this entry from his blog. One day I asked him what would change for him if we were able to go through with this transplant. Here's the response I got from him:

You asked what would change for me if I got a transplant. I didn't really give the most significant answers. It's not so much what would change as my being able to keep two very important things in my life, for a long time, hopefully.

The first would be to keep the wonderful and ever improving relationship with Ingrid. We have had our times of trials in the past but have gotten to a place of intimacy and friendship that is actually hard to believe. Groundhog day was the thirty-fourth anniversary of our meeting and in August we had our 25th wedding anniversary (we had an 8 year courtship, including 2 years apart.) We never wore wedding rings before, but in August we got a pair of rings from Ben Nighthorse, with bear totems. Last night we had a a lovely dinner at the Kennebec, then this morning, snuggled, made love, babbled and sat in the hot tub from 4 AM to 10 AM. It's really had to beat days like that.

The second thing to keep is my practice. When we first came here 19 years ago Ingrid would ask me when I thought I might retire. I said 10 years. I was 51 years old. Every few years she'd ask again and I'd say 10 years. Now I'm 70 years old and I'm still saying 10 years (with the possibility of extending, of course, if I'm doing well.) I continue to love the work, seeing people get better (most of the time) and I love seeing my patients. When I've been off for a bit I start thinking about individual patients, wondering how they are doing and I look forward to getting back. Hard to beat that too.

So I'm not so much looking to restore something I had before, although that would be nice. I'm hoping to stay healthy enough to continue to love and be loved, to help others appreciate their lives, for them to be loved and to love. If I can do that for another couple decades (or more) that would be the greatest gift I can imagine.

Terry

So two days from now I will have one of his kidneys cleaning my blood. And also, less well known, keeping my red cell count up to par and keeping my blood in the right range of acidity.

So for me one of the important things that has come from all the prayers is running into Paul and Joyce that afternoon in the Mercy cafeteria. And having him offer to donate. This seems rather miraculous.



Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Too bad I can only do this once.

Last night I punched the "facebook" icon on the first posting of my new blog, just to see what would happen. What happened was pretty phenomenal. I heard from many people and I will carry their good wishes with me into the operating room on Thursday morning. One of the most interesting messages came from my good friend Linda Okazaki, in Port Townsend who said, "We have another dear person, Chuck Deardorff receiving a kidney from his brother today. This gift is one of love and life. Blessings !"
It seems that at least half of all the news stories I've read since this process started in December, have had something to do with kidney transplants, surgery, anaesthesia, weight loss. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. I have been known to exaggerate from time to time. In any case I seem to have become a magnet for the word "kidney." This is probably payback for the many times in my life when I haven't paid any attention to the word.
Here's wishing Chuck Deardorff and his brother speedy recovery.


Monday, April 25, 2011

Off to Denver to share a kidney

Terry and I will have something in common after this Thursday, April 28, 2011. He will have one of my kidneys. I will have the other one. That's me on the left; Terry on the right. This will be a big adventure for both of us, and we want to share it with anyone who might be interested.
The transplant will happen at Porter Adventist Hospital. The people there have graciously consented to let me photograph as much of my experience as possible. There will be written posts and photographs from both of us throughout the experience. We probably won't be doing much during the surgery, though.