Another Move, A New Friend

I will be moving to a new abode as of the middle of this month. I found the place on one of my walks. It's the back half of a craftsman-style house about 10 blocks from where I'm currently living. It has more floor space than this place, though it too is a one-bedroom. It has a sunny extra room, though, that could be used as a dining room or an office. It has a shared back yard and an assigned parking place. That is one of three things I have long wanted in a residence: off-street parking, some dirt for a garden, and a place that will accept a dog.

That brings me to the big selling point: It's pet-friendly! As soon as I move in, I'm going to start looking for the dog of my dreams. I want the kind of dog I had as a child, one that will look at me with its big, loving eyes and pound its tail and wiggle its butt with joy when I come home. A dog that is smart and can be trained to sit up and shake its paw. A dog that is not high-strung, that only barks when it feels it needs to protect me. Not a sissy lap dog. A real dog. A mutt. Ideally, with some golden retriever in its genes to give it that beautiful honey coloring.

I told Aaron that I was much more excited about looking for a dog than looking for a man. He responded, "There are a lot more choices." A lot more good choices! About once every three or four years, I meet a man about whom I think, "Oh, hot damn! I could really go for him!" But I meet three or four dogs a week about whom I think, "Oh, what a cutie! I could sure live with you!"

UCLA Cardiologist Gives Her OK

I received some good news this week: The UCLA cardiologist is recommending to the transplant team that I be placed on the wait list. Since I had been told by the transplant surgeon and the head of the kidney-pancreas transplant team that they needed to hear from the cardiologist before making a decision, I am under the impression that they will go with her recommendation. Let's hope so.

In fact, just from a collegiality standpoint, I would think that the transplant team would have to go with her recommendation. If they said they needed to hear her opinion and then they disregard her opinion, that's a bit of a slap in her professional face. They wouldn't appreciate it if another doctor did the same to them. So I have a good feeling about this.

I had written several emails to my Kaiser nephrologist and cardiologist this week about the nuclear scan of my heart that was taken last week. In part, I asked that they ask their UCLA colleagues to stop "looking at the damn lab results and start looking at the person who is standing in front of them." I said that it is like looking at a student's failing grades and, on that basis, labeling him stupid, when all the while he's writing Nobel Prize-winning novels and findig a cure for cancer. This is analogous to my situation: The lab results paint a discouraging picture, but I feel great. I wrote that on Monday evening I walked two hours without stopping, without chest pain, without shortness of breath, whereas my walking companion, who is supposedly without health problems, was near-panting. I feel that I am in better shape than most of the women my age who don't have kidney disease. Certainly I am a better, healthier transplant candidate than someone who is 50+ pounds overweight and doesn't exercise!