Minimal Changes

See!  It's funny because it's a pun!  It's what I'm doing with my life and it's the name of my disease! Get it?....Um... I thought it was funny.....

I'm not going anywhere on Halloween.  *GASP*  Wait, no.  I'm the same person who, at 21 and 22, chose to stay home and watch the Disney Channel instead of partying on New Year's.  Skipping a party is really a minimal, a small, an easy change.

I drink water all the time now.  Not only are the kids who collect bottles for recycling making a mint off of me, but the makers of Smart Water ought to be thrilled that my doctor recommend I drink distilled water with electrolytes...I'm helping keep them in business.  I've practically renounced caffeine and don't see the point in alcohol anymore.  Once again, these small changes aren't really a big deal to me. I enjoy the rare cup of coffee or cocoa and I think I'll always love a cup of tea on a good day, but my life is a far cry from having 64 oz of caffeinated beverages before noon.  I can easily join the ranks of teetotalers who have good reasons for abstaining from the deliciousness of Guinness or Bailey's shakes. Too many people on my message board bemoan brief relapses after a few drinks, and the alcoholism in my family makes me unsure I'd be able to keep from indulging.  So, now I can pull the kidney disease card.

I don't know why today  I'm focusing on the "minimal" instead of the "change." Maybe it's because the last 8 months I've spent a lot of time wishing the changes didn't have to happen.  I've never really liked change.  But there are a million little changes I'm making, and most of them are healthy lifestyle choices that I should have made years ago (Can anyone say sleeping at least 8 hours a night?).  The changes to my life and personality have been hard on my family and friends, but I hope that even they can see that these 'minimal changes' (I know, I'm killing the already bad pun) aren't all that bad

Life back to normal?

And how.   I have a cold.  The first cold I've had since, oh, 8 months ago, right about the time I was diagnosed with a rather odd kidney disease. 

And why is that normal, you may ask?  Well, see, I've had colds or bronchitis just about every year since I ventured into the world, and I know how to deal with them.  I have a very specific list of things that make me feel good when I have a cold, and I'm finding that my kidneys play a very small part in my cold.  It's great to get to think about something else other than Glomular Filtration Rates or Albumin ratios.

My list of how to get through a cold.

1) Sleeping:  Sleeping is something I never seemed to have time for.  In junior high and high school, when I felt a cold coming on, I'd sleep from 4 pm on Friday to around noon on Saturday.  In college and especially, in grad school, I never seemed to have enough time for sleep. One of the perks of spending another semester recovering is my access to sleep. 

2) Water/Juice:  My kidneys have shown me how important hydration is in the grand scheme of things,  but having a cold reminds me of water's joys all over again.  If it wasn't 90 degrees outside, I might indulge in tea or broth, but I'm sticking with cold drinks for now.

3) Sandwiches. I know everyone says to have soup when you're sick, but sometimes it seems like way too much work to lift a spoon.  I get shaky hands sometimes, so that makes spoons a bad idea.  A sandwich, however, is easily accessible, and, if the sickie is tired can be saved for a later date.

4) Steam:  Humidifiers are great, but a few minutes in a steamy bathroom usually makes my head and chest feel less...well...awful

5) Mindless Projects:  I don't know about anyone else, but I always feel worse if I spent an entire day without accomplishing anything.  Today I hung pictures, sometimes I crochet or read, once in college I alphabetized our DVD collection.

I realize that everyone has their own sick traditions.  I like to be left alone when I feel really bad, but there are moments I feel great and want to be out in the world, spreading my germs.  

Hooray for normal!

Tutoring Again

Today I made ninety dollars.  I tutored a college student for 2 hours and a 7th grader for an hour.  I'm getting my groove back.  Sure, I've discovered that I have to drink 3 liters a day or my kidneys decide to hate me, but I've regained a semblance of my former life.  I don't ever want to go back to filling 18 hours of the day with back to back activities, but I do like doing stuff again. 

Stuff is good.

Hospital Silliness

I thought this was worth posting. I wrote this on Day 2 of Hospital stay #1

My beloved teachers and professors,(the not so beloved will get a different email)
Contrary to rumors I'm not dying of kidney failure or even experiencing "failure" @ all. I will be in the hospital until they can figure out what is wrong, but I'm praying that's only a few more hours because the infomercials on tv are starting to make sense. The nurses call me the funny young one (I'm right next to leisure world, the place old people go to drive) and despite all the complications I have a good attitude and trust the doctors and surgeons.

If you haven't heard any tidbits about me languishing away in a southern Cali hospital, consider this a quick update on my life. If you have heard silly rumors you get to be the one to nip it in the bud.
Audience of one,
Katrina

The funniest thing to me is not the fact that my kidneys actually were failing that day, the "few hours" was actually a few days, and I said Leisure world is where old people go to drive. If you don't live near Leisure World this isn't funny--but the common phrase around here is that LW is where old people go to die. They do drive there, albeit poorly.

I was on very, very strong painkillers at the time, and in my defense, it took a good month or two for me to recognize the severity of the situation. It also took me several months to realize how incredibly loopy I was in the hospital and how much nicer that shot of happiness was than the months of pain killers and muscle relaxants...

Hymns

I took a class my final semester of undergrad called “History of Christian Worship.” We learned about various liturgies, creeds, and movements in the church, but what I wanted to learn was hymnology.

I want to know why I hummed “How Great Thou Art” as I was curled up with a rather large needle in my back to get a kidney biopsy and MRI. I want to know what it is about “Amazing Grace” that makes lots of people cry at funerals, but stand a little taller at baptisms. I want to know why my high school youth leader felt it was of the utmost importance for us to learn all the words of “Come thou fount” and why we don’t sing the “battleshield” verse in “Be Thou My Vision.”

I know that I come from an unusual church background. I feel very blessed that I grew up reciting the Apostle’s Creed every week, and that my first response to “What do you believe?” is “I believe in God the Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth and in Jesus Christ…” We sang hymns and there were times in my childhood that we rocked out to 80’s and early 90’s praise choruses. I learned the gamut of children’s praise and bible verse songs and, due to my tenure at rather hip churches and a school that desired to prepare us for worship in the real world, I’ve learned the latest praise songs.

But what is it about the hymnists? I want to meet Fanny Crosby someday (not just because Adventures in Odyssey made her sound awesome) and I’d like to spend an afternoon or seven with the Wesleys. I want to thank Martin Luther for all of his contributions to theology, but mostly for “Almighty Fortress is our God.”

Why I have this Blog

I recently read about a contest to win a $10,000 scholarship for university students with blogs. My immediate response was "How do I get me some of that?" I promptly realized that I not only think in bad grammar, but I don't update my blog enough to win an award.

And then I wondered why I don't update this blog very often. I have a Word document with over 600 pages of content copied from the LiveJournal that I updated several times a week through undergrad, but I'm doing well if I update this once a month.

What's sad about that is that I have a folder of documents called "Blog Thoughts." I write out full length blog entries and then decide not to post them. Usually because they reek of the angst that marks my old LiveJournal...but still. I was really, really sick this year. I'm still not doing great. I think maybe it's time that I allow the friends and family that started to read this blog to find out what was and is going on into my head a little bit.

I named this blog Thistle Theology because, back in undergrad, I grew very frustrated with the acronym 'TULIP" used to describe the main tenets of Calvinism. Mostly, I was frustrated that the semantics of the phrases were debated until they meant nothing, but then I spent some time (that I ought to have been writing a paper or working or some other such nonsense) thinking about how fragile Tulips are, and how very short their life is in the grand scheme of things.

So I decided I liked thistles better. I wrote out a very well-thought out acronym that could probably make me millions if I could publish it, but I happened to write it on the back of a page of theology notes. And as much as I'd like to share my brilliance with the rest of the world, I'm not willing to spend a week sorting through old boxes of notes.

But think about it--thistles are hardy, often difficult to get to, and beautiful in their own unique way. Ironically, I came to the conclusion that I'd rather be more like a thistle than a tulip long before I got sick. My illness has made me more like a thistle. I'm stronger than I was, because, well, I've had to learn to be. I'm wary of sharing my feelings and opinions, because my meds reduced my inhibitions just enough for me to say cruel things to my friends. And I really do think I've come into my own kind of beauty--it's just different than what I had planned.

I'm going to try and post something---whether it's backdated or new, every day until the contest. If I get the courage, I'll submit an entry, but if not, at least I spent a little more time letting people in.