Ready or Not, here we come, back to Durango

Tomorrow (Thursday) Doug and I will point the wondertruck southwest and step on the gas. We got clearance from the folks at the Kidney Transplant Center today. They have declared me the new poster child for the donor program, saying my progress since surgery 6 days ago has been nothing short of remarkable. Aw shucks.

I can't praise my donor team at Porter enough. They have been wonderful to work with. And I feel that the surgery must have been flawless. Certainly there have been no complications from the surgery, and there has been almost no pain. For the past two days I haven't even taken Tylenol as a pain killer. No pain at all. Today I asked the surgeon if he was sure he did anything when he was inside my mid-section. A master of understatement, he just smiled.

When I was in the clinic today, they asked if I'd be willing to go down the hall and talk with a potential donor who was showing signs of nervousness. I don't know if I allayed her fears or not, but I thought I'd start out by bending forward and touching my toes. She probably thought, "What a jerk!" But she was smiling when I left.

It will be good to be home in Durango. I will have been gone for nine days. Nine very productive days, that have given me new perspectives on many things in my life. In a transplant like the one Terry and I have just gone through it is the donor who reaps the rewards. I am completely humbled by the people I have met, and the process I have gone through. I'm sure it will take me some time to get my mind around all of it.

Phase II begins & The Prodigal Returns

So, the kidney thing is pretty well under control and I am now convinced it was a good thing to do. I can't believe how great I feel, and I am overjoyed to hear from Terry how well he is doing.

But it's now time to fill the hours between now and Thursday morning, when I'll be allowed to return from Denver to Durango. Denver has never been my favorite city--not since the mid sixties when it literally sucked the life out of smaller towns in the region, like Casper, Wyoming, where I grew up. So I am determined to overcome my old preconceptions and learn to like the city that I have studiously avoided ever since I moved to Colorado.

Joyce and I started the process yesterday by going to the Art Museum. We were completely impressed by the beauty and scale of the place. And we enjoyed a very well-done exhibit of "Cities of Renaissance Italy." Then I took the photo of Joyce sitting by the cow sculptures, just to prove that Denver is still, despite the sophistication of the Art Museum area downtown, still an overgrown cow town.

Then I lost my camera, with the photos still on the card. That was probably payback for my "attitude."

Then, this noon, I got a bit tired and took a mid-day nap.

Then, when I woke, I put my hand over to the middle of the bed, and there was the camera, under the covers. So now I'm going to practice saying only nice things about Denver.

Doug Brew is here to help me with that process. Joyce had to leave and go back to Durango this morning. Doug drove up yesterday, so he could be the one to keep reminding me that I have just gone through a fairly major surgery and that I should take it easy from time to time. But we'll also do a little cruising when we're here. Tomorrow, for example, we'll go to the Botanic Gardens, do a little walking around, act like we know what we're seeing, and have lunch.

Who knows, maybe I'll start to think of Denver as something other than the place where I lost a kidney and almost lost a camera.