Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Tag: dialysis (Page 2 of 2)

Migraines and Laundry, Which One is Worse? Part 1

I have spent the last couple of days reading so much stuff about how be a successful blogger.  I don’t know if I can take any more advice.  But I did get some good tips so not time wasted, just not spent writing.  So here is what I am going to do with this blog, write it! I will write whatever I want every day.  There may be 2 posts per day. There may even be a series like this one is going to be. Here is part one:

So here goes with some focus actually.  It may or may not be known that I am a stay at home dad.  I have been off and on for the past 8 years so that an actual parent can raise our kids.  My wife is a Nurse and can just make more $$ than I can so when it comes down to it, she is more logical to work than me.  Especially this last go around.  I quit working in April of 07 to go back to school and finish the last few credits of my degree.  About a week later, my 11 month old daughter had a seizure and ended up in the hospital for 16 weeks with kidney failure.  My wife carried the insurance so I took care of the little one as well as the 2 other kids.  And the house.  and the laundry.

The next 2 years I spent 3-4 days per week taking the little one to dialysis because she had her kidney’s removed, and it took that long to get a transplant lined up.  She got the transplant in May of 09, so after all of the followup DR. appointments I am here taking care of the house and the kids again, run of the mill stay at home dad.  Funniest thing is how it pisses off my father the ex Navy SEAL type A personality control freak.  But I digress yet again.  I wrote many blog posts to keep family updated on the baby’s progress at www.carepages.com pagename: ameliarosematthews.

I didn’t start this out to talk about stay at home dad stuff, or even migraines but it may be what it was meant for.  I went downstairs yesterday to catch up on the laundry.

Join us tomorrow for part 2 of the migraine and laundry series. See Part 2 Here

And part 3 Here

Justin

Poetry Wednesday: The discombobulated edition

I know I know, Poetry should be on Tuesday.  But this week I am a day off.  Let’s get right to it then!

Peritoneal dialysis

Image via Wikipedia

This poem was written at a conference we went to at Kidney Kamp after my daughter got sick.  We had been trying to do Peritoneal Dialysis on her for 4 months at this point, and it was not working.  It was at this camp that we finally ended all of the attempts at PD(peritoneal Dialysis) and went exclusively to Hemo Dialysis in the clinic.  She had been doing Hemo during those 4 months as well.

This conference, actually more of a symposium on dealing with kidney disease had a lady come in and have the parents write about their feelings.  Good for me, I wrote 2 pretty good poems that day.  I wil feature the other one another week.

Click on -more- to read the poem!

Who is the strongest person you know?

So really, who is the strongest person you know?  and I don’t just mean in terms of being able to pick up heavy stuff.  I mean strong in personality and just traits that can make them able to do anything that needs to be done.  Being able to lift heavy things is just a bonus.

For me, the strongest person I know is…well lets start with some back story.  I used to think my Dad was just about it.  He could lift the aforementioned heavy things, he could handle anything that came up.  He could influence his world just by being around.  Everyone respected him because of who he was with not a small measure of fear attached to it.

My Dad is still a strong person.  He Still gets what he wants and can influence his world.  But he is no longer the strongest person I know.  That honor now resides with a 4 year old girl, my daughter Amelia.  Now, she can’t lift heavy things yet, but she is getting there.  She can swing a 10 lb kettlebell pretty darn good.  Her strength is a bit different.

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