Perfume Museum and Celebrity Chef

The morning of June 7, we visited Musee de Parfum Fragonard, a fascinating collection of rare and antique perfume vials that leads the visitor to a showroom for the Fragonard line. A little too flowery for both Helene's and my tastes.

We then walked to Eglise Madeleine, a Roman Catholic church built in the classical style. We made our way to the Musee Rodin, only to find that it is closed on Mondays. Before getting on the Metro, we relaxed in a little park beside Invales named Place de la Concorde. There I spied a woman sitting on the grass, her form surrounded by flowers and greenery. She looked like a living Gaughin painting.



We took a very deep Metro to Buttes Chamonte, a large park with a stream, a waterfall, and a lake. The depth of the subway really affected Helene's inner ear, and I too could feel the pressure. We must have been at least four levels underground or about eight flights of stairs.



I was really struggling with all this walking. I suspected I was still anemic, plus this was far more exercise than I was accustomed to at home. Over the last several months, I have experienced a constellation of symptoms that wear on me. They include

* fatigue
* weakness
* lethargy
* chest discomfort and pain
* abdominal discomfort and pain
* nausea
* aching shoulders, neck, and back
* headache
* lightheadedness
* dizziness
* phlegm in my throat that I can't expel
* dry cough
* poor appetite
* chills
* heart palpitations
* heart tightness and constriction
* quivering of the heart (irregular heartbeat)
* labored breathing

It's not that I experience all of them at once, but I experience some of them all of the time.

Throughout the trip, Helene helped me so much. She often carried my baggage up stairs when there was no elevator in a train station or the airport. I was often at the limit of my physical ability just to continue walking, much less carry or pull luggage. Without Helene, I would not have been able to travel in France, as unlike the U.S., it is not set up to accommodate people who need extra assistance.

That night we ate at Marie's apartment. Her ex-boyfriend's nephew, Ben Darnaud, popped by. What a great guy! He is only 25 and already he has published a cooking book and has his own cooking show on French TV. He had just returned from a few days in Dublin, where he attended a food festival. Such a cutie!

Dogs, Orsay, and Vertigo

Dogs can go everywhere--on the Metro, on regional trains, inside cafes. This is really a dog-friendly place.

On Saturday evening, after our walk through Pere Lachaise, Helene and I cooked dinner for Helene's friends Marie, an English professor who sounds like a Brit when she speaks English, no French accent, and Stefania, an Italian immigrant and healer. What amazing women! Because we had a late dinner, I had to hook up before we ate, but no one seemed to mind that I was attached to a dialysis machine via a long cord.

The next day, Sunday, June 6, Helene was suffering from vertigo, so I went exploring on my own. I walked and walked and walked, again getting very turned around at Notre Dame and the Ile St. Louis. Finally, after many wrong turns, I ended up at the Orsay Museum. The first time I was there, I was also alone, in 2002, and I was moved to tears by Manet's "Olympia." The sheer power of this woman looking out at you, defiant of social conventions, daring the viewer to hold anything but awe for her. Once again this painting moved me.

Many others had the same effect, including Cezanne's "Card Players" and Renoir's "Moulin de la Galette." The woman looking away from the action, the one in the foreground, strangely touches me, as if I knew her, or was her.

After many bouts with Stendahl syndrome, a psychological and physiological reaction to too much beauty, an aesthetic overload, I headed for the Metro. It had taken me more than three hours to wind my way to the Orsay. I wanted to make better time coming home.

As i negotiated the Parisian streets and its subway system, I noted how much more confident I was this time in Paris than I had been in 2002. Then I had come to the French capital by invitation of Lionel, a Frenchman I had met for dinner when he was traveling in the U.S. Every so often, he would call me, and finally he asked me to visit him for a week. Like all my dealings with men, this arrangment with Lionel was strange and unsatisfying. We only had sex twice, and both times I had to initiate. His style was as far from romantic as one could get without it qualifying as rape. Then during the day, he treated me like I was his little sister, an annoyance that our mother had said he must allow to tag behind him. He refused to allow me to take a picture of him, as if he wanted no record of having been with me. Very odd. I wondered this time whether I was so put down by Lionel's treatment that I felt I couldn't make my way alone in Paris, that I was held hostage by Lionel, or was it that I am just generally more confident? Either way, I had no problem asking directions and smiling widely.

Pere Lachaise

On Saturday afternoon, June 5, Helene and I explored Pere Lachaise, the Paris cemetary where loads of famous people are buried. High on our lists were

* Jim Morrison



* Modigliani



* Oscar Wilde, whose grave stone is covered with kisses and messages





Poor, sensitive Oscar was pulled through the mud at the end of his life with a sodomy trial, ostracization from the socialites he had so grandly entertained, and sentenced to a two-year prison term. Now his grave is Mecca for gay men and for all those who value his wit and his courage.

Even if Pere Lachaise lacked celebrity graves, it would still be worth a visit. Very relaxing. A pleasant respite from the hustle of the Parisian streets.



We did, however, overlook the grave of Victor Noir, a journalist who died in a duel. We did not know anything about him until Marie, Helene's friend who is an English professor in Paris, told us about his well-visited grave. His stone is complete with an erection and has been rubbed by countless women over the years in the belief that doing so will make them fertile, improve their love lives, and/or get them a husband within the year. Oh, well, Victor, see you next time!

I've Returned!

I got back from my travels late Tuesday night, thankful that I had no emergency room visits or hospital stays.

Flying first class was a real treat. Because Helene is an Air Canada retiree, she gets several passes each year, but she decided to splurge and use her guaranteed first-class tickets with me. We flew Halifax to Monteal and then to Paris. Great food. Good service. And a private cubicle that made into a bed. That's the way to go.

Helene and I spent six days and six nights in Paris, renting an apartment near the Temple Metro station, a half hour's brisk walk from Notre Dame. The apartment had a full kitchen, private bath, garden view, washer-dryer, and plenty of quiet. Perfect.



Getting all the Baxter boxes from the concierge to the apartment was quite an ordeal. After we'd settled in, we walked to Notre Dame, taking our time, as I was tired. We got really turned around on the two islands, walking and walking and coming back to the same spot an hour and a half later. Too many bridges. I began calling this area the Bermuda Triangle.



The next morning we explored the flea market. I was surprised to see so many black figurines, something that would have been considered racist in the States.



I spotted a man whom I considered handsome and pointed him out to Helene. I also thought that he looked like an older version of the archangel I'd seen 10 years ago. I really wanted his photograph and asked Helene if she'd ask him if it's OK. She was embarrassed, so I approached him. "S'll vous plait?" I asked, gesturing with my camera. At first he thought I wanted to take a photo of his artwork, but when he understood it was him I was interested in, he became a bit shy and said in French that no one had ever asked to take a picture of him before. I was upfront and told him that I had told my friend that I felt he was handsome and wanted to remember him. Rugged good looks. Hard to come by these days.



Speaking of good looks, it was such an incredible treat to be in country where people are trim and stylish! In the almost two weeks that I was in France, I saw perhaps a dozen heavy people, most of them Americans. The overweight French were nothing like overweight Americans. I mean, they were still walking around and doing chores, not confined to a scooter. In the States it is very difficult to find a man over 50 who is in shape. There, they were everywhere.

People walk instead of drive or take the Metro with its long flights of stairs. I didn't see any junk food or candy bars. If you want some chocolate, you go to a choclatier. It's a special treat, not something you mindlessly shove down your throat. Food tastes so much better because so much of it is organic and locally grown. Good wholesome food and lots of walking make for trim, good-looking citizens.

Off to Paris!

I arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, yesterday afternoon. My friend Helene picked me up at the airport, and we spent the night at her place in Bridgetown. Today we return to the airport and head to Paris--first class!

I have never flown first class, but Helene is an Air Canada retiree and so gets breaks on air fares. This is going to be quite a treat, from what I hear from those who have flown first class before.

Helene and I rented an apartment in the 3rd District of Paris for six nights, then we are off to visit our mutual friend Khadidja, who lives in Monton, a little town about three hours southeast of Paris. All told, I will be gone 15 days.

This may be my last trip on dialysis. Yippee! Not only is travel complicated and burdensome because of all the supplies I must lug with me, but airport security is a hassle. Every time I am patted down, and often I am taken in a back room so that the guards can check out my dialysis tubing and insulin pump. And of course my luggage is thoroughly searched and dusted for drugs. If I believed that the world was awash with terrorists, as our government wants us to believe, I might--might--think this is OK. But as I believe that all this Homeland Security bullshit is simply a means to surveille and subjugate the citizens, I am impatient with it, to say the least.

As I travel, though, my supplies will be diminished, and by the end of the trip, I will probably be able to fit everything into one checked bag.

Bon voyage!

Good News!

I spoke with Fe, the transplant coordinator at Kaiser, and she said that Janet and Bob are compatible and that Maria and I are compatible. So that means that we can do a paired donation!

So strange that I had to make a bunch of calls in order to get this information. You would have thought that the coordinator would have called me as soon as she knew. Or that the donors' coordinator would have called them. This is big news for us recipients and donors, but I guess it's just another case to handle for the coordinators. This is so typical of the medical profession. Why people were sitting on this information is beyond me.

Maria, Bob, and I are all cleared to go. We're just waiting for Janet to complete and pass her round of tests on June 16 and 17. If all goes smoothly, I could have a new kidney--Maria's kidney--by my birthday. The best birthday present ever.

So the timing of my trip to France is perfect. I leave the evening of June 1 and return the evening of June 15, the day before Janet begins her tests. Everything seems to be falling into place. Amen!

Thank God for Heartburn!

Since my hospital stay in Fontana a little over a week ago, I have continued to experience chest constriction and tightness, especially while lying prone. On Monday morning, I couldn't take the stress of this anymore, so I drove to the ER. I was worried that I was having cardiac problems and that these would prevent me from getting a kidney transplant. This was all that I could think about, so I wanted some answers. What was going on with me?

The docs at Harbor City Kaiser did a bunch of EKGs and tested my troponin levels every four hours to see if there were any signs of a heart attack. Then on Tuesday I was given a radioactive dye, underwent a resting and a stressed heart test, and had images taken of my heart. I experienced fairly intense chest pain during the stressed portion and had difficulty breathing. This really worried me.

A few hours later I got the results: no sign of any new damage to the heart! The docs felt I was experiencing intense heartburn or perhaps gastoparesis, the latter of which diabetics often succumb to. Right now, I am taking an antacid for 14 days and avoiding acidic foods and beverages. Gastoparesis can become quite serious and entail surgery, but I'm going to see that it doesn't get to that point.

I am so incredibly grateful that I have no more heart damage. I was going down such a negative road in my mind, while simultaneously praying for good news. I'm so glad the latter approach triumphed.

I am also glad that I did not listen to the doctors last weekend. I was getting the message from my cardiologist, the hospital cardiologist, and the hospital nephrologist that I should just take the blood transfusion and get the stress test immediately or get an angiogram. But I decided to wait until my hemoglobin had improved, then take the stress test. I am so glad I stood up for what I felt was right. Otherwise, I would have either had a blood transfusiont that could have jeopardized my chances of accepting a kidney or underwent an angiogram that is fraught with risks.

So, hooray, hooray, hooray!

Medical Emergency at 7,200 Feet

This past weekend was the 12th annual chick cabin getaway weekend. I arrived at about 11 a.m. on Saturday and was immediately in trouble.

Green Valley Lake, located in the San Bernardino Mountains west of LA, is at 7,200 feet. No one had cautioned me about high elevations, and it didn't cross my mind that attending chick cabin only six months after triple-bypass surgery might pose a problem. Well, it did. Immediately upon my arrival, I was struck by severe chest pain and constriction. I laid down, but that didn't help because lying prone put even more strain on my heart.



When Susie arrived about 20 minutes later, I told her I'd have to drive down the mountain. She didn't think I should do that on my own and took me to the GVL fire station, where I received oxygen.

I knew my blood sugar was high and suspected that my insulin pump's infusion site was not delivering insulin to my body, but I was in no shape to change my site. Unfortunately, I did not receive an insulin injection until five or more hours later in the ER at St. Bernadine's in San Bernardino. By that time, my blood sugar was over 500.

The GVL station was not equipped to handle me, so an ambulance took me down the mountain. Some of the chick cabin gals followed in my my truck and in Susie's vehicle. Laurianna, a firefighter in New Mexico, helped by getting a list of my meds. The paramedics were such nice guys. Aren't they always! Scott tried to get an IV in my left arm while we were twisting down a winding mountain road and failed. He then asked me if I'd ever had an IV in my neck, and I told him that for sure we're pulling over if he's thinking of doing that!

Next came three sublingual doses of nitrogylcerin and an infusion of morphine. That got the chest pain under control for a while. By the time we got to the ER, I was feeling much better, so my friends left without me asking them to get my blood monitor and insulin supplies from my truck. I could have kicked myself for that, since my blood sugar was not regulated until noon the next day. If I had been able to get my insulin pump working, I would have been in much better shape much sooner and would have prevented much of the chest pain.



I was transferred to Kaiser Fontana on Saturday evening and stayed there until Monday evening, when Aaron and Rasputin picked me up. (Heather had driven my truck back to Long Beach as I hadn't known if I would be transferred to Downey, and I didn't want to have to worry about the truck.)

Heather called and left a message on Saturday night. Unfortunately, I was talking with a doctor and didn't take the call. Heather said that the only phone that worked at the cabin was Susie's, so I called Susie back. Unfortunately, I called her home number, not her cell. I must have left a dozen messges on Susie's home phone--all messages that she didn't retrieve until she got back to LA! I also left a bunch of messages on Heather's cell, just in case she got to a place in the mountains where she could retrieve them. I was alone and lonely, and I really wanted the support of the chick cabin girls.

Early Sunday afternoon, a doctor told me that my triponin level had continued to increase and was now in the borderline region between questionable and probable heart attack. This set me over the edge. I simply could not face the possibility of being on dialysis for the rest of my life because of a cardiac event.

The docs wanted to either perform a nuclear-medicine stress test or an angiogram to see if there had been any new damage to the heart. I was against the former as it would require a blood transfusion, which means the possibility of antibody formation, which would complicate or preclude a kidney transplant. I was anemic, with my hemoglobin at 9.6. In order to safely perform the stress test, I'd have to be at least a 10.

The angiogram is far more invasive and carries the risks of heart attack, stroke, or death. Besides, the dye can damage the kidneys.

After much hand-wringing, crying, and consulting with doctors, I opted to leave the hospital, up my procrit injections to stimulate blood-cell formation, test my hemoglobin in a week or so to see if it is 10or more, and if so, take the stress test. Getting all this done before leaving for France on June 1 is another matter.

My belief--and I'm holding to this--is that this was a perfect storm of high altitude, high blood sugar, and anemia, any of which taken alone can cause chest pain and constriction. I am holding to the belief that this was not a heart attack or anything else that might jeopardize my placement on the list. I will get on the list, stay on the list, and receive a successful kidney transplant.

How Much is My Life Worth?

My friend Daphne sent me a link to a CNN story about California's new living-donor registry and New York's interest in an opt-out organ-donation program. Instead of people having to explicitly state that they wish to donate their organs upon their death, the state would assume that you do unless you opt out.

The comments on this story were fierce--on both sides. It's amazing to me how many people are concerned about what happens to their bodies after they're dead. As one sarcastic commenter wrote, if you need to be buried with your organs, maybe you should also be buried with all your wives and your slaves. That was pretty funny, but some of the comments weren't. One that especially disturbed me was someone who wrote that transplants should not be performed because they're too expensive. The father of a young boy who had been on dialysis for eight years before receiving a kidney transplant shot back that dialysis is far more expensive than a transplant. The first commenter didn't respond, but I can imagine him saying, "Well, then dialysis is also too expensive, so we shouldn't allow that either."

This made me wonder: How many people would vote to turn off my dialysis machine? How many people would prefer that I was dead? Am I wasting taxpayer money (since all dialysis patients are on Medicare)? Is my life worth the money that is being spent on keeping me alive? Do healthy people think of sick people as useless or as too expensive to keep going or as better off dead? What would I have to do in order to make myself valuable enough to be considered worth saving?

I don't have answers for these questions, but the pondering of them made me very sad. This general dismissiveness of the world was coupled with dismissive comments earlier in the day from someone who let me know I had disrupted his day by calling him. Perhaps part of the inconvenience or discomfort he felt was due to me being a dialysis patient or a diabetic or a heart patient or someone with a broken hip. One of those people who, in the opinion of some or many in our society, is wasting money that could be better spent elsewhere. Perhaps on buying more killer drones for use on Pakistani civilians or giving more money to Wall Street bankers or building even more prisons. Yes, there are so many ways to facilitate death.

Officers' Club in Ruins

Aaron had to work until 4 on Mother's Day at Parkers Lighthouse, where he now waits two or three days a week, so Rasputin and I checked out the Great Park in Irvine.



You are really setting yourself up for criticism when you name something "great," and the Great Park in Irvine is no exception. I had not heard much about it, except my friend Bev's disparaging words. I wanted to see for myself.



A Turkish festival was being held Mother's Day weekend at the Great Park, and initially I had thought of attending. But upon walking up to the venue and seeing that it was primarily a carnival and that I'd have to pay $12 for admission beyond the $5 I had already paid for parking, I thought better of it. Instead, Rasputin and I explored the ruins of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the approximately 4,700 acres on which the Great Park is situated. Officially closed in 1999, the base had initially been considered for a new airport or a housing development. After much back-room wrangling, a park was born.



One thing I had heard of the Great Park were the free balloon rides. Though it didn't seem as if anything was going on in that department, Rasputin and I walked over just to make sure. The balloon was tethered to the ground, and no one was waiting in line for a ride. Would like to try that some time, but Mother's Day was not the time.



I had heard of high hopes for the park, but what I saw was a bunch of dead and dying grass and buildings in various states of decay. Some structures were fairly intact; others were nothing more than cement foundations and a few concrete steps. No playground equipment, no lakes, no hiking or bike trails, no picnic tables. Just a bunch of grass and a few parking lots.



The first and biggest building I checked out was some kind of huge warehouse. I didn't go inside, as I couldn't find an unlocked access. That would have been quite surreal walk about in a warehouse the size of several football fields.



Near the park's entrance was the former officers' club. Though the main entrance was chained and locked, a side door was not only unlocked but open. Rasputin and I entered. Though most of the walls had been stripped down to the framing and the carpet had been removed, I was amazed to see that so many chairs remained, that the glass ceiling had not been damaged, and that a few framed pictures still hung on the walls. Especially since I did not see any NO TRESPASSING signs or warnings that it was a federal crime to destroy former military property. Also, I saw absolutely zero security personnel, unless you include the young guys at the gate directing traffic.



I love to explore ruins, and this was a bunch of fun for me. I especially enjoyed standing in the relatively intact bar and thinking that a little over a decade ago, this had been a hopping spot. This was so much more fun than a crowded festival or an overpriced, hurried Mother's Day brunch.

Dialysis Invades my Dreams

Last night for the first time that I can recall, dialysis entered my dreams. I had two dreams in which I had to explain to a humanitarian aid coordinator why I had not reported to a remote third-world site to help with relief efforts. I explained that I was a dialysis patient and that travel to such an area under conditions without electricity for my machine and a source of clean water was dangerous for me.

Over the decades, diabetes has often figured in my dreams. I am offered a piece of candy, say, and immediately the thought comes to me that if I eat it, my blood sugar level will rise. Or perhaps I eat the candy in my dream, but all the while I'm fretting that I will pay for this in high blood sugar. Whenever I'd awake and recall these dreams, I'd realize how deeply embedded in my consciousness this disease is. Even in sleep, there is no escaping it.

Then I had a dream about 11 years ago in which I slowly and almost sexually consumed a fine chocolate. The experience was luxurious, extravagant, and completely devoid of any pangs of guilt or worries about blood sugar. Simply the delicious pleasure of delighting in the texture and flavor of this morsel. I took this dream as a sign that I would soon be healed, that my inner self no longer knew me as a diabetic and that very soon my physical form would respond in kind.

That did not happen, of course, though I believed it with all my heart and soul.

Thanks to All the Childless Women

On this Mother's Day, I would like to say a big thank you to all the women who have not had children. If you had, the world would be much more crowded and a much uglier place.

For the record, I love being a mom and I love my son. I am very happy I am a mom. And I'm sure a lot of moms out there are happy they're moms too. But that's not the point of this post.

I know it is hard for you sometimes when people ask if you have children or when they wish you a happy Mother's Day, not knowing your situation. I'm sorry too for all the people who have asked you over the years when you're going to have children or why you didn't have children--as if it's any of their business. And I know that this holiday for some of you or sometimes for all of you is as much of a downer as Valentine's Day has so often been for me.

If I were the dictator of the world, I would perhaps allow everyone to have replacement children--that is, two for every couple. Anything beyond that would result in penalties or huge tax disencentives. In fact, I would give women who choose not to have children a tax break for every year they are childless.

If you look at my ex-husband, his new wife, the love of my life, and me, Aaron is the only progeny. So we're at only 25 percent replacement rate.

If there were far fewer people on this planet, so many problems would disappear or be greatly diminished. Pollution, consumption of resources, unemployment, racial and ethnic tension, overcrowding, poverty, illiteracy, starvation and malnutrition, erosion, deforestation, street crime, subjugation of women, child labor, drug and alcohol abuse, spousal and child abuse, and war all stem, at least in part, from too many people sharing too small a space.

So thank you to all the women who have not contributed to these problems by adding more mouths to feed.

What a Shirtless Man Can Do to Me

Yesterday morning before I left for work at the spa, I rang my neighbors' door to see if they would care to have Rasputin for the day, since Aaron was also working Saturday. It was a little before 9, and the husband answered the door shirtless, in sweat pants, and with rumpled hair. He's good-looking, good guy who is trim, intelligent, and has a sense of humor. After he said yes and we exchanged some pleasantries, I went off to work with a tear in my eye.

It's not my neighbor per se. Sure, he's a great guy, but it's more the overwhelming sadness that I felt seeing him standing there, knowing it's been more than 10 years since I loved a man who really seemed to love me, that it's been that long since I woke up to a man's bare chest. And even more than that, I thought that I'll never have that again in my life. That's really hard to take. That because of my diabetes or my kidney disease or the dialysis or the heart surgery, I'll keep being rejected or not even considered. And of course, once I have the transplant, I'll have so many scars on my body that I'll look like a hacked piece of meat.

As I was doing my first massage of the day, I thought, Once I get the kidney transplant, I'll be free of the dialysis tubing. Then I can get a bunch of tatooes, maybe intersecting vines that connect and cover the bypass scar down my chest, the scar from the vein they took from my right thigh, and the huge gash that comes along with a kidney transplant (for the recipient, not the donor). That made me feel much better. I thought there still might be a chance at love in this lifetime.

Later that day, however, I remembered: With a compromised immune system from taking the immune-suppressant drugs that prevent organ rejection, I will not be able to have tatooes. The possibility of infection from the needles is too great.

So I guess there will always be a reason for a man to reject me. The best I can do is do a much better job of avoiding the countless prompts that might remind me of my aloneness--love songs, couples holding hands or kissing, people talking about nice things their significant other does, groups in which I'm the only single person, any references to or images of sex, and, of course, bare-chested men.

Life Sharers

Half the people who receive organs in this country are not organ donors themselves. LifeSharers is a nonprofit organization that contends that just is not right. If you are asking for an organ, shouldn't you be willing to donate your organs upon your own death? It only seems fair.

Now you might say, "Who would want the organs of a person who is in such bad shape that she needs organs?" Well, my heart, pancreas, and kidneys may not be quite up to snuff, but my liver and lungs are fine. Also, my eyes could give sight to the blind, and my bone marrow, tendons, and sinews could be used to help so many others. So don't ever think you're too old or too sick to be an organ donor. You never know whose life you might save or whose living conditions you might greatly improve. Anyone can become an organ donor.

LifeSharers is an organ registry for organ donors. Members agree to donate their organs to other LifeSharer members (family members take precedence over LS members). This is a much more equitable system, plus for people like me who are awaiting an organ, it greatly enhances my chances of getting an organ before my time is up.

At present, there are nearly 1,400 members and only 84 members who are in need of an organ.

If you care about me and if you care about making the organ procurement system more equitable, please become a LifeSharer member at lifesharers.org.

Forty Years Ago Today

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Kent State massacre in which four unarmed students were shot and killed by Ohio National Guardsmen and another nine were wounded. The students were protesting Nixon's illegal and immoral bombing of Cambodia and had set fire to an ROTC building. The students were told to disperse and were inundated with tear gas. Then the soldiers opened fire. As a witness says 40years later, it's still an unsolved murder.

I remember being at Kent State only a short time after the shootings. My mother, oblivious to the hundred thousand activists who were heading to Washington, D.C., for protest marches, decided to go ahead with a trip to the capital that she had planned for my brother's and my spring break. As we drove from Wisconsin to Washington, we encountered young people and hippies at every truck stop. When we got to the capital, it had been virtually shut down, as the activists had taken over the entire Mall.

We did not get to visit the Washington Memorial or many of the sites around D.C., but my brother and I received a valuable lesson in history, as we saw so many people spontaneously petitioning their government to end the violence overseas, as this violence had so dramatically spilled over into violence against our own people here at home.

On the way back to Wisconsin, my mother detoured to Kent State. It was a chilling experience to be on the campus where students had died just a few days before.

Despite the public outrage regarding Kent State, the violence did not end there. Just 10 days later, at Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss., another two unarmed student protesters were murdered, this time by local law enforcement.

Let us never forget Kent State. In 1989, when Chinese troops opened fire on protesting students in Beijing's Tianamen Square, Americans were justifiably outraged and simultaneously awed by the courage of a lone student defying the tanks. But even at the time, I reminded those who would listen that our government would do the same under similar conditions and in fact it had at Kent State. Let us never forget what our government is capable of doing and very willing to do to silence protest.

My Long Afternoon at UCLA

I arrived at UCLA Medical Center a little after noon yesterday. During the course of the next four hours, I met with a nephrologist, a social worker, and a transplant coordinator. But most of the time I sat and waited, starting and finishing a guidebook on Paris for my upcoming trip.

The nephrologist said that he would approve me for the kidney wait list and propose that I get a pancreas transplant later. In effect he is saying no to the latter, since the cut-off point for pancreas transplants is 55 and I'm already 51. By the time I get a kidney and recover from that, I may be too old for the pancreas. Besides, he said, the odds of me surviving a pancreas transplant or a simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplant with my existing heart condition are sketchy. His thinking was that since I have a donor who is willing to participate in a paired donorship, I should not wait around three years or more for a deceased donor's kidney and pancreas. Rather, I should get a kidney ASAP.

The transplant team does not meet for another two weeks, but it sure seems as if it's a done deal that I'm on the list. Of course, I've thought that before and I was wrong, but this sure seems right. Plus, the transplant coordinator told me to have my donor, Janet, contact the donor coordinator to begin testing. Before this, they would not let Janet proceed with testing until I had gotten on the list. If they're asking her to proceed, my getting on the list is now a matter of formality. Hallelujah!

A beautiful turn of events has given me hope about finding a donor whose blood type matches mine. As previously said in other posts, Janet is type A, and I'm type O, the most common type of mismatched pairs. O's can give to anyone, but can only receive from other O's. So in order for me to get a living donor, I either have to have an O donor step up on my behalf or do a swap with someone who needs an A donor but has an O. The latter case might occur if the recipient had antibodies to his O donor's blood and so couldn't use the donor's kidney.

A few weeks ago, I used a gift certificate for a facial. I had asked that Tracy, a gal I once worked with at Mr. and Ms. Day Spa, do the facial, but when I arrived for the appointment, I was told that Tracy had taken ill earlier that day and that Jennifer would be seeing me. Turns out, Jennifer's dad is a dialysis patient who also has an unmatched donor. Jennifer thought her father, Robert, was an A and the donor an O, but she gave me his number and I gave him a call. Turns out, he's had a transplant before, so perhaps it's the case that he developed antibodies to his donor's blood.

If the swap with Robert doesn't work out, I have two options as I see it: 1) wait until a suitable match for a swap is found somewhere in the country; the kidneys are then extracted from the donors and rushed to the recipients, or 2) move to a state with a much shorter wait time. The transplant coordinator said that I could wait up to 18 months for the former and as little as a few months for the latter. A lot better than seven to 10 years without a donor.

One of the major problems of moving to another state is the lack of a support system. As I learned with my heart surgery, the only person who will be there for me is Aaron. And without a support system, I will be taken off the list. That was what the social worker made very clear to me yesterday. They don't want someone on the list who has no one to care for her once the transplant is performed. So moving to another state may not be an option.

I'm in Love--with Carl Sagan

Over the past few weeks, I have watched the 14-hour, seven-CD series "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage," originally aired on PBS in 1980 and still the most widely watched PBS series in the world. It is narrated by the late astronomer, astrophysicist, author, and cosmologist Carl Sagan.

I may have seen part of the series three decades ago when it first aired, but I don't remember doing so. Like many people of a certain age, and others such as my son who seem to know more about the times of my youth than I do, I always associated Carl Sagan with his dramatic, exaggerated "billions and billions" of light years and galaxies. But he was so much more than that.

After spending 13 evenings with Carl, I am sorry I never met him while he was alive because I really could have fallen for him. He had a poetic nature and a sensitive spirit that were enhanced by smoking pot. (That shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone.) In his series about the stars he frequently worked in the folly of military spending, the ridiculousness of preparing for nuclear war, the commonality of human beings, and the simultaneous free thinking of the ancient world about the celestial bodies and yet the nonexistence of challenges to the status quo of slavery and the diminishment of women. He spoke so poetically and dare I say mystically about the universe, the thirst for knowledge, and the human spirit, yet he was also an avowed skeptic and agnostic. He quoted Walt Whitman, then easily segued to an explanation of worm holes, quasars, and alternate universes. In "Cosmos," he traveled the world, sometimes slicing an apple pie in Cambridge University's dining room or sipping coffee at a Greek cafe or walking through deserted ancient temples. Quite often he philosophized along a rocky seashore or fervently wished he could have been one of the scholars at the Library at Alexandria before its burning in 391 A.D.

A few of his many choice words that I scribbled down while watching him on my laptop:
"We are star stuff." (He said this a lot.)
"our ship of the imagination"
"Stars are the phoenixes rising from their own ashes."
"We are, in a very deep sense, tied to the cosmos."
"It makes good sense to revere the stars for we are their children." (That's fantastic!)

Yes, I could have really gone for someone like Carl. And from what I've read, I'm not the only woman who found him cute. He married three times, all remarkable women in their own right--a biologist, then an artist, and with him til the end, his "Cosmos" co-author. He fathered five children.

Something that touched me most profoundly about Carl Sagan is how he longed to make contact with intergalactic travelers. I feel very strongly that contact will happen soon, within the next few years. Carl died in 1996, 14 years ago in December. I like to think that the star stuff that was Carl has reconfigured into an adolescent human who will see the day when ETs and humans make indisputable contact. Or perhaps, as he was quite an enlightened soul during his time on earth, he has evolved to a higher level of being and will be one of the visiting aliens whom he had wanted to meet.

Thursday is the Big Day

This Thursday at 1 p.m. I meet with the transplant team at UCLA. A few times in the past, I have thought I had jumped through all the hoops and was on the list, but, no, not yet. Thursday is supposed to be the deciding day. God, let's hope so!

My understanding is that I will meet with a social worker who will assess my support system, a psychologist or psychiatrist who will determine my emotional suitability as a transplant patient, and a transplant surgeon who will give me his blessing as a viable candidate.

But of course no decision will be made Thursday. My candidacy is still up for debate. The entire transplant team will assemble at some later date and seal my fate. That could be weeks or a month or more from now. So I may not know if I'm on the list until after I get back from France in mid-June. UGH!

Once again, I can totally understand how some people just throw in the towel and give up on this whole long, dragged-out, frustrating, exhausting process. If I were less assertive, 20 years older, or not feeling as well, I certainly would not have continued. It's just too much work and too much stress.

Please, if you think of me on Thursday, send loving thoughts my way. See the transplant team viewing me with an open mind and an understanding of what is truly in my best interest.

The Four Essentials of my Ideal Residence

I have long desired four things in a residence: a designated parking spot, a backyard in which to grow vegetables, a dog, and my own washer and dryer. (Quiet, safety, and sunshiny rooms are a given.) Where I currently live offers two of these--parking and a dog. When I was married, I had the other two. For the rest of my adult life, I've either had one (a backyard) or none, so I'm getting closer.

This afternoon, after a month of rewiring and repiping and painting, a washer and dryer were installed in a small utility room at the back of the house. It is for use by all six units, but it's still a lot nicer than having to cart my dirty clothes to the laundramat. So I guess you'd say that I now have 2 1/2 of the four essentials. Yippee!

The Pervasiveness of Violence Against Women

I was called for jury service today. On other occasions when I've been called, all I did was sit in the jury selection room on the sixth floor of the courthouse and wait. I was never asked to report to a courtroom. Today was different: From 7:45-9:30I sat, but then I was told to report, along with about 50 or so other potential jurors, to the third floor. The trial was for a Latino man in his mid- to late 40s who was charged with multiple counts of child molestation and rape of two minors between 1998 and 2007. The girls are now 15 and 17, so that would have made them 3 and 5 when the alleged molestation began. As the charges were read, I was close to tears.

The judge instructed the potential jurors as a group and individual ones as they were questioned that we should not pass any judgments based on the number of charges or the duration of the alleged abuse. She said that she had presided over a burglary case with more than 30 charges, but if the police arrested innocent men, they are innocent regardless of the number of charges. She also made it clear that this is a difficult case for most people to hear, but just because it is difficult doesn't mean it's impossible for someone to listen to the facts and decide upon the facts. She said that she is not asking jurors to be emotionless zombies, only to not allow their emotions to decide the case. All good instructions.

From 9:30-11:15 and then 1:30-3:45, jury selection took place. The defense attorney used maybe 15 of his challenges for cause or peremptory challenges to exclude jurors. Some of these challenges I understood as the candidates seemed to have a strong bias in the case. Others were harder to understand, but I suppose the defense attorney was looking for a certain type, whatever that was. The prosecutor just eliminated two potential jurors, a man whose uncle had been acquited of child molestation charges and a woman whose brother was serving an excessive sentence for burglary in Colorado. I was never questioned, and when 12 jurors and four alternates were finally selected and sworn in, I was free to go.

The two things that really struck me were how many people have attorneys or law-enforcement officers in their family and how many families have been touched by rape and molestation. Two men were excluded because their grandmothers had been raped and murdered; another man because his wife had been raped as a child and was still suffering from it; a woman whose grandmother had been murdered and her cousin raped, causing her so much trauma that she was institutionalized for most of her life; a school principal and a pediatric nurse who frequently dealt with children who had been molested; three women who left the jury box in tears because of the rapes or molestations of their family members, on and on and on. It really makes you wonder how many sick men are out there and what is it about our society that makes them so sick.