Clinic Day

Today was our monthly clinic day. Not much has changed...Little Pom is super-happy because the dietician explained that he's only restricted from colas, not from all brown soda. Which means he can have his beloved Mr. Pibb again. :-) His weight is holding steady, which is so-so news, because he's not losing any...but he's also not gaining; which we really want him to do. So he gets more good news from the Dietician: he can have LOTS of steak and hamburger and even bacon...one slice a day, LOL. 

On the "eh" side of things, one of the new residents mentioned that he had a heart murmur today. This is the first we've heard of this and even when the "big" doc came in, he didn't feel a need to mention it to us. She said it's most likely benign and that they can come and go...but still, I think it's an important fact to know, don't you?

That's all the news from today. Daddy gets home tomorrow and I can't wait. The Dancing Queen left to go visit the other half of her family today, so LP and I had some alone time today. Now, when Daddy gets home, I'm going to get some totally alone time. :-) I'm thinking I need to get a pre-winter facial and manicure. We'll see. 

Oh Where Have All the Comments Gone?

Okay, seriously...

LEAVE ME COMMENTS!

At the bottom of each post you'll find the phrase "karmic truths" with a number in front of it. Recently, that number has been zero. A LOT of zeros. 

Click on karmic truths and post your thoughts, comments, suggestions, whatever. 

You can also click on one of the emotion/response check-boxes below each post to register your feelings on the subject, LOL.

Am I talking to a brick wall? I sure hope not. That's a fairly boring way to spend an evening.

Love ya all!

My Mother Kinda Rocks

She not only procured a new fridge for our soon-to-be-finished house, but she managed to get a HUGE big box store to essentially give us my dream fridge: a french door, freezer drawer on the bottom, beauty. I'm in love. Of course, the real fun started when my father- and brother- in- law tried to deliver it for me. Have I mentioned that we're rehabing a rather old home? With very narrow doors? Yeah....when I left to put LP on dialysis, they'd taken the doors off the fridge and were working on taking the doors off the house, LOL. It'll be beautiful...even if it *is* kept on my front porch from now on! (Just kidding, mother!!)

Pics of the house updates will come tomorrow, but for now, take a look at my fridge:

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=45982-46-GX5SHTXVB&lpage=none

At the late night, double feature, picture show

Last night, Daddy and I did something that I haven't done since I was 17 years old:

Rocky Horror Picture Show, LIVE.

Talk about a blast from the past!

When we arrived, I was startled to see how young the cast members looked. Seriously, Dr. Frank was about my age, and Columbia looked to be approximately twelve. Then I realized that they were all most likely in the same age-range I was when last I did the Time Warp at Midnight. I was the one who'd gotten old. 

Once I came to grips with the fact that time waits for no one...not even those who don party hats and throw slices of toast in a crowded theater...I went into RHPS Snob mode. When the cast went around identifying Rocky "virgins" (first-time attendees) I was quick to point out that not only was I NOT a virgin, I was from the home of the longest-running live Rocky show in the country. That's right, ladies and gentleman, I've done Rocky at the Oriental!

Daddy *was* a virgin, however...and was quickly marked as such with a giant lipstick V on his forehead- a signal to the cast that he was to be tortured later on. Highly amusing for me, by the way. 

Overall, the night was great fun-- and the first night out alone that Daddy and I have had since Little Pom was first diagnosed. He was de-virginized in ways both amusing (for me) and mortifying (for him). The cast was not quite up to Oriental Theater standards, but then, I was raised on one of the BEST RHPS casts short of Richard O'Brien and Tim Curry. My standards are thus insanely high..so, I'll forgive them their horrendous Bohemian Rhapsody lip-sync opening act, and instead compliment them on being brave enough to put on their act every single month in Jackson, Michigan of all places. 

This isn't a "news" post. Nor is it a post about LP. I just wanted to tell y'all that we had fun last night and felt like kids again for a couple of hours. Because nothing makes you feel young like shooting people with squirt guns in a darkened cinema.  

Time to Process

Okay, I've dried my tears and have had some time to process the whole idea of a President Obama. I have to say, I was scared to hope. I was truly scared that this would be like every other election I've ever voted in; where the scarier of the two candidates won. This was the first time I've been able to vote for someone I truly, passionately believed in....as opposed to the candidate that I thought would "f" up the country less. And after the past 8 years, I'd pretty much given up on the idea of hope. I've marched with hundreds of thousands- enough to literally fill up Washington D.C.- only to have it called a "focus group", assuming it wasn't ignored completely. I've watched the Commander in Chief say that my religion isn't one. I've sobbed at the funerals of family members who died because when they couldn't find work anywhere else, they enlisted. I've sobbed again in the halls of Congress when elected officials (cough...JOHN McCAIN...cough) tell me that he's willing to "take a chance" with my husbands life, as long as there might be potential for resolution in Iraq and that obviously Rob's cousin died because he was simply too lazy or too stupid to look for a civilian job before joining the Army. The idea of compassion, of dialogue, of hope, has not been a part of my reality for the past eight years. Now it is. Barak Obama wasn't the candidate I supported because he was the Democrat. He was my pick in the primaries (well, he would've been if our state government hadn't acted in such hubris as to cost us our electoral voice) from the minute he announced. And then, he got the nomination! And now, he's WON! Honestly....I didn't believe it could happen. And I am so incredibly hopeful and grateful and blessed. And while I know that much of my family is die-hard conservative and is undoubtedly taking this very hard; I'll remind everyone that the Bible says that our leaders are chosen by powers higher than just our little votes and ask them to be glad- glad that Little Pom has a chance to perhaps access amazingly life-changing medical care, if nothing else.  There's a song by the duo "Emma's Revolution" that kinda sums up how I'm feeling right now. Here are the lyrics. And here's to hope for the future!

bound for freedom

©1997 Pat Humphries

Moving Forward Music, BMI

www.emmasrevolution.com

In Montgomery and in Selma and the streets of Birmingham

The people sent a message to the leaders of the land.

We have fought and we have suffered but we know the wrong from right.

We are family, we are neighbors, we are black and we are white.

Here I go bound for freedom, may my truth take the lead

Not the preacher, not the congress, not the millionaire but me

I will organize for justice. I will raise my voice in song.

And our children will be free to lead the world and carry on.

Here I go though I'm standing on my own,

I remember those before me and I know I'm not alone.

I will organize for justice. I will raise my voice in song,

And our children will be free to lead the world and carry on.

From the streets of New York City 'cross the ocean and beyond

People from all nations create a common bond.

With our conscience as our weapon, we are witness to the fall.We are simple, we are brilliant, We are one and we are all.

Hope Wins.

And peace prevails. 

Hope and Nausea

I can't wait until tomorrow. And I can't wait until tomorrow is over. Words cannot describe how emotionally invested I am in this election. As a military wife, and as the mother of a severely ill child, there is so much riding on the outcome of tomorrows election for me. Will be husband spend the rest of his career in and out of Iraq, until eventually he either retires or is killed in action? Will my son have access to life saving therapies, or will some new administrations armchair scientist with a hardline theological bent decree that my childs life isn't as important as that of a few cells in a tube? Will my stepdaughter (and myself, frankly!) have the comfort of knowing that if (heaven forbid) we were ever sexually assaulted; that we would be able to access emergency contraception without interference from the person behind the pharmacy counter? 

For many, many voters this year, these are abstract concepts that they hear debated on Fox or NPR and then forget about. But for me, this election is, for my family, quite literally a matter of life and death.

 I take it VERY personally when someone who claims they care for us votes to continue this futile war, which has already robbed my family of one member. Or votes against the research that could make Little Poms life longer, easier and healthier. Or who laughs along with McCain at the idea of "the health of the mother." I'M that mother. And LP is my son. And my husband is the one putting on that uniform every day. 

I HATE this! I am so hopefully that tomorrow everything will, for the first time in most of my adult life, start to be okay again. I am so optimistic that there might truly be a light at the end of the Bush-era tunnel. 

But I'm petrified that it might not.

I will spend my election night home alone, because my husband will be on deployment...again. I am filled with hope and nausea. And I just want to know that everythings going to be okay.

So tomorrow, before you vote, think of me. And my child. And my husband. 

And vote for change.

And vote for hope. 

Some Thoughts Before We Vote...

It may shock you to see that this is NOT about the Presidential-portion of our ballots on Tuesday. It's about Prop 2: the Stem Cell Research intiative. For those of you who aren't in Michigan, you might have something similar on your ballots...and if you don't, you probably will someday. I've always been fairly apathetic on this issue. I've heard opinions on both sides of the equation and have always fallen squarely in the "this one doesn't affect me" camp. I know! How unlike me to *not* have a political opinion, whether it directly relates to me or not, right? Well guess what? It does.

I read this weekend about Dr. Anthony Atala, who used to be the Chief of Pediatric Urology here at our own Childrens Hospital of Michigan. Now, he's in North Carolina at Wake Forrest, working on actually GROWING bladder tissue and even whole bladders. Keep in mind that Little Pom's kidney disease was actually caused by an incurable bladder condition and the fact that this man is literally cultivating bladders is amazing. It gives me a sense of hope for my sons future that I haven't really felt in a l-o-n-g time. Maybe someday, Dr. Atala's research will progress to a point where LP can receive a bladder transplant, made of tissue that doesn't contract and stay put the way his current bladder has. Maybe, someday, my little boy WON'T face a lifetime of catheterization. It's possible: Atala has already performed one successful whole bladder transplant, in addition to several lab-grown tissue transplants in children who were born with abnormally small bladders. And yes, in case you haven't guessed it yet, all of these amazing Little Pom-Life-Saving medical advances are the direct result of stem cell research and experimentation. 

So there we have it: Stem Cell Therapies have the potential to give Little Pom a normal adulthood, free of invasive, uncomfortable and embarrasing medical procedures. This isn't hypothetical- it's already being done. But maybe some of you think that being able to avoid a lifetime of urinating out of ones belly-button isn't a cause "just" enough to warrant the sacrifice of those clusters of unwanted, already-trashed cells, that would have been destroyed by the in vitro lab anyway if their donors hadn't seen fit to give them for medical research. Maybe, just maybe, an easier "lifestyle" doesn't cut it for you. Then consider this: Dr. Atala is also working on growing whole KIDNEYS. The Pomegranate Clan has gotten used to living with uncertainty. We have no way of knowing for sure if Daddy will turn out to be a suitable donor. We have no way of knowing if LP will reject a donor organ. We have no way of knowing if LP's kidney function will hold steady long enough to get him to the point of transplant. Nothing in this world is certain for us right now. Except for this: Stem Cell Research now has the potential to quite literally save my childs life. Maybe not today. But soon. 

Unless people cast their votes to say that this:

Is more precious, worthy and deserving of one more day on our planet than this:

For all peoples talk about the ethics and morals of stem cell research. I have to believe that at the end of the day, Little Pom's future is slightly more valuable than that of 14 (previously frozen and incinerator-doomed) cells. So please....I'm asking (well, begging) you as a Momma: vote YES on Michigan Prop 2.  And if you're not in Michigan, the next time the subject of Stem Cell Research and Therapy comes up....remember this face: