I've graduated from UCLA--the UCLA kidney transplant clinic, that is. I no longer have to get up once or twice a week at 4 in the morning and drive to UCLA for 5:30 blood tests and a meeting with a nephrologist to adjust my meds. I passed the three-month mark on March 8, and they set me free.
From now on, I'll get lab work and visit my Kaiser nephrologist only once a month. I'll go to UCLA once every three months for a year, then once a year after that.
Though I wasn't feeling very well for more than a month, I'm feeling much stronger and more vibrant now. I'm back to contemplating an August-through-November road trip. I've done the math: Figuring gas at $5/gallon, living expenses at $40/day (food and camping fees), and not having to pay rent for four months because I'll give up my apartment, my income will cover my expenses. Of course, if gas goes to six or seven dollars a gallon in the next few months, then I'll have to rethink things again.
Mystical experiences, yearnings, politics, little dramas, poetry, kidney dialysis, insulin-dependent diabetes, and opportunities for gratitude.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
I've Graduated from UCLA!
What's more, I just emailed an article to a travel magazine that pays quite well. I had queried the editor last June, and after months of persistence, I landed the assignment. It would be fantastic if she likes my work and would like me to write from the road this fall. That's what I did in the summers of 2005 and 2006. Each time I gave up my apartment and traveled during the summer, conducting interviews via cell phone and writing and emailing articles from public libraries across the continent. I would love to do that again. Now that seems like a possibility again.
Of course, getting lab work done on the road may be challenging. I need to find out more about that.
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About Me
- Heidi's heart
- Southern California, United States
- Perhaps my friend Mark summed me up best when he called me "a mystical grammarian." I am quite a mix--otherworldly, ethereal and in touch with "the beyond," yet prone to being very precise and logical, when need be. Romantic in the big-canvas meaning of the word, I see the world as an adventure, as a love poem, as a realm of beauty and wonder.
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