Kidney Klink - Am reunited with Alice and Paige - Poem: Of a Tuesday Evening in June

TWO MAJOR RULINGS BOLSTER GAY MARRIAGE - June 26, 2013 - The Last Day the Court is in Session

I learned about it on FB where I was eyeing my grandson Max. He's 3 months old.



Yesterday, the Kidney Klink's phone didn't answer.  I wanted to make sure I had an appt this morning. So I emailed two nurses, one of whom, Cathy, emailed back with a Yes.

When we talked about it today in the Waiting Room, everyone was in a silent uproar. Most people called "Patient Relations."

The situation will not change. It's been this way since my April 2011 tplant.

How great it was seeing my old kidney pal Grace Gooseby. It's been a couple of years now. What a wonderful woman she is. She's doing well but has her ups n downs. Her 92-yo mother passed last November. Grace's son stayed with gram much of the time.

Shedley, from Haiti, weighed and took my vital signs. I took my car keys and sunglasses out of my pocket for the weigh-in.

138.2

This would put me in the "Super Lightweight/ Junior Welterweight" female boxing class.

I think I'll pass and stick to arm wrestling with Scott.

Here's Paige Lockwood, my transplant nurse. What a treat to see her! There are some new kidney candidates and she's talking with them.

She said that Grace, a retired social worker, is one of her miracle patients. Took a while before she got the right match. Relatives are always tested. In Grace's case, one of her brothers has a horseshoe shaped kidney - one kidney connected to the other. She lost function from lupus.

Instead of waiting in my lil cell, I untied my chains and walked over to speak to Eileen and Lou of southern New Jersey. Her kidney is 6 years old. When she was on dialysis for 3 years, she lost the use of her legs, but she still worked. Now she's getting rehab and hoping to gain more use of her legs.

She got legs and knows how to use em - ZZ Top

She's my age, 66. Actually, yesterday was my half b'day, so I'm 67.5.

Where are the cards, ladies and gentlemen?

Eileen Goodman has two boys and a girl. All live in the area.

Except her zookeeper son who just got a better job in Providence RI and is gonna move. Let's have a look.



It's got a million followers on Google Plus. What's dat?

AND I forgot all about Roger Williams, a 17th century Protesant theologian, thank you Wiki, who was in favor of freedom of religion and separation of church and state. He built the first African-American church on these shores.

Rog, baby, you should see us now. The Voting Law was struck down yesterday, 5-4, by the SCOTUS. Just learned that term on FB.

Eileen lost kidney function from high blood pressure and diabetes. 

Her zookeeper son and another son each have a child with autism. 15-yo David, who's in a wheelchair like grandma, has areas of genius in his brain, like Rain Man. Her other g'son is 3.

Two in one family. It's probly fairly common.

I told her about my late bro with autism, David, the family photographer.

Eileen told me dialysis wasn't too bed. I mentioned that awful looking fistula. She said her nephrologist told her her fistula is 'dead.' I guess it vanishes into the body when it's no longer needed.

 Everyone was really happy to have their picture taken. Here's today's nephrologist Dr Rasib Raja from Pakistan.

A calm and sedate man, never rushed, I learned he lives in Fort Washington and has visited Fort Washington State Park many times. I'd wrin an article many yrs ago about their Hawk Watch.

Dr Raja is a jogger. I looked down at his shiny black shoes.

First thing he said is "Your creatinene level is  .8, which is terrific.

Blood pressure was good. Everything was good.

You're doing great, he said.

I asked him if he had any tips for when Sarah and I go to Paris and London in the fall.

The usual, he said. Stay away from big crowds of people where you might catch an infection.

I asked him again about going off the prednisone, which contributes to my insulin-dependent diabetes.

Yes, he said. He would titrate me off the prednisone next year.

Hurray!

He said that many hospitals never use prednisone at all.

He said I should come in once every four months.

Sold!

What a relief it is walking out of the Clinic. I was there for 2.5 hours.



The New Yorker came today so I read the short story MASTIFF in my lil cell - see foto above - by Joyce Carol Oates. At 75, she lives outside of Princeton, where she teaches creative writing, and she writes from morning until night.

Hint: The mastiff in the story - Rob Roy - mauls two of the characters.

This is Bernice J Jones, who gave me my new appt.

I'd never spoken to Bernice before but she told me she and her husband took a trip to London and Paris - for three weeks - and absy loved it!

She has b'ful purple nails - also on her toes - hmm, I'll have to try purple next time.

My mom is named Bernice, I told her.

She was given the name b/c a dear friend of her mother worked in a factory. She was crushe to death in an elevator accident about the time her mom went into labor.

Her mom tells Bernice she's a like lot her friend!

First thing when I get home is to write down the date of the Einstein appt and then contact Quest Diagnostic to get lab tests 10 days before the appt.

Isn't this interesting?

Charming flowers on the Einstein campus.

 Got lots of good shots on the way home. "Daylilies on the Side of the Road."

 Coming home on Overlook Ave, some mighty pretty hastas.

 A first! Below, a willow tree on neighboring Ball Road.

 Huge salad I ate on the back porch on the Judy Diaz love seat. Hot out dere.... but

 protected from bugs on my screened-in porch.

Delicious ripe cantalope.

Sarah wrote that she liked the poem. She also said, "i love that book. it's slow, yes, but it never bored me for a moment. i found the voice so engrossing."

OF A TUESDAY EVENING IN JUNE

it’s late

but the coffee’s hot

and I am reading

on my red couch

Remains of the Day

it’s taking off, finally,

is it the coffee that

makes it so?

I stop for a sip

and a “think”

the cup between

my legs

warming my

inner thighs

The back jacket

calls the novel

“brutal”

but like a

bad marriage

we quickly accept it

marveling at the

author’s roundabout

language

sentences so long

you hurry to

the finish line

So many stories

like my own,

the needle marks

I glance at casually

in the crook of my arm

made at the last blood draw

Don’t worry,

I’ll be around for a while

I lift my still-warm

but not hot cup

and bring it to my lips

how fresh it smells

I made it myself

Roasted Sumatra

When Stevens the butler

and star of the book

decides to alight

from his Ford

where he is motoring

about the famed

sloping green meadows

smooth as a tear

I insert the bookmark

switch off the light

and whirring fan

then open the door

for one last look

smell the misty rain

which wants

nothing to do with me

and hoping for a

crack of thunder

or something

exciting, since the

book is not

and

about to close

the door

see a giant

orange moon

plum over

the street light

and the sleeping

baby birds,

swallows, this time,

we think.