Time again for apologies, but don't feel there are any hard and fast rules on when and how I should post on my own blog. However, I do feel a sense of "courtesy" should force upon me the necessity of posting more often than I do.

I am currently well. Just went through treatment for a "staph" infection. The precautions make it far more serious than my actual suffering was. Im home from the hospital and back to my regular schedule of kids, cleaning, running, and loving; wife kids cats. I have really tried recently to shake it all up with some new goals in the short and long term. I do, and can readily admit, that I have a hard time with staying put in my life and routines. I have learned and worked a great deal on the focus of what is and what I can and do have control over... which is in fact almost nothing, except for my response to things. It can and is freeing.

I came out of the hospital the other day to the same from my precious kitten who just came home from being spayed. We are a pair. She and i seemed to feel the bond of "just glad to be home".

Home is a good thing and a place where you can rest it all away.

I guess I have failed the blogger code, or law, or rules.. It has been several months since my last entry. I am sorry for anyone who may of wondered what had happened to me. Since July it has been a whirlwind of activities for me and the family. Lots and lots and lots more of activities for my wife and kids. Driving to practices, work, school, and friends. For me a renewed effort to hold the house and kids together while my wife finishes school. She continues to do more than exceptional, and the kids continue to take on more activities than we can drive or pay for in any given week. But we manage and I m proud of their efforts, and the no quit they have all shown going forward. I myself, have continued overall very good, if not great physical health, with a new mental tranquility that comes with the simple revelation of "acceptance". Seven years this month I started dialysis, and have been waiting for a transplant the same. I really can't say I have or do miss anything but maybe the freedom that comes from the being tied to the dialysis machine. I run around 30 miles a week (six to seven days running a week). Cross train several days, do housework, assist my wife, see family and friends, follow my Tigers into the playoffs, and look forward to trips next year to LA and maybe Hawaii! I try to keep it simple and realize it is hard, and thats ok too.

I received a comment on feeling alone in the struggle with feeling ones life slipping away while waiting for the transplant. I feel that can be just as real a feeling as sitting waiting for anything that you fixate on as the "necessary"next thing that does not come as one may desire. It will pass and you will desire something else, and you will still be just that much closer to the end. Or something like an end. The hard part may be the suffering, but don't worry too much, I have found that that is temporary too. Let me know how you are all doing. Thank you for carrying on, and connecting. I will make better efforts to connect at least once a week.

Its been a month from my last entry, what can I say. Bad blogger. Anyways, as is the case every year the first month of the summer is crazy busy. Kids get off school, baseball, swim team, my wife finished her semester in school (got a 4.0!), going to our cottage on Lake Michigan, and all the other odds and ends that come with all of that. Overall my health is very good, and dialysis has been going well. I've had many good runs, and bikes, but yet cannot shake the underlying blues that I seem to have coloring my view of everything.

Its hard to say that I am depressed, but at times, even though I seem to be busy, and involved with my wife and the kids, I can't help feel a little lost with the place I find myself with my life. Its not that I'm not grateful for the good fortune I have with my ability to have the quality of life I do have with being on dialysis and waiting for a transplant. It is for what is not there. A lost career, down time with not alot to do, and, selfishly, wanting a bit more money to relieve my wife of having to support us by herself. I know I'm more than pulling my weight with what I do around the house, and with the kids, but maybe its just a male social thing.

I've thought seriously about starting a consultation service helping dialysis patients, just starting out, as well as ones who have been on for a long time, to talk, dialog, and educate through simple but powerful techniques on how to go about maximizing their quality of life, both physically and emotionally while living through this uniquely challenging lifestyle. I do not come from of point of naivete on this idea. As a former practicing attorney, a guardian for abused and neglected children, and someone who does regular speaking engagements on kidney and kidney failure to a number of groups and organizations, a really see a need for a concrete service for all persons connected to this issue. I continue to think and plan on how to put this together. Anyone out there with ideas and feedback, please write back with your comments.

Talking and helping others, as I have found, gives renewed purpose, strength, and hope, to you as well. No matter the problem, sharing with others can really bring help to all of us.

Have strep throat, sore all over, but my monthly numbers are good, and as infections go, this one is small time. It has made me feel a little down, physically, but thats the deal. It has become full blown summer here and its is hot, hot, hot. Easy, if I want to sweat out any excesses in fluids that I may wish to partake in. An hour in the weather today, running or biking, would lose an easy couple of kilos of water. Im here writing contemplating that fact right now. I will do something just not sure what. Like I said feeling a little on the slow side with my strep issue. Last Friday, after a normal dialysis, and hour of being home, dozing off like I usually do, a sudden and overwhelming fever and accompanying aches and pains washed ashore on my body. I do not have the luxury of others who develop these symptoms who just take some fever reducer and "ride it out". Anything can be something coming on to be the heavy duty something or other, like a dangerous bacterial infection, or pnemonia. Any of which means long term care in the hospital, and a non-pleasant break from my life.

I've, of course, become normalized to this "schedule" I have experienced for my own body. I have become sensitive to all that my body does, and feels, for different things. Used to to the up, the down, and the different, so that I can stay on top of whatever needs to be done.

Running, Biking, weight lifting, stretches, and some yoga movements. Its been a rebirth of the hard core this spring. Am I over training? Not yet. Its been all fun and my body is responding real well to all the different things I'm pushing it to do. Had a five star ride two days ago in a perfectly perfect day when I combined running errands with a twenty some mile ride through trails, parks, and beautiful neighborhoods. Been running every day as well. Just feeling good and gonna ride it till a break comes and calls me out. The trans formative effect of physical activity, done with verve, and joy in the heart cannot be underestimated for the whole of the body, mind, and spirit.

I probably written about this before, but this morning during dialysis, while talking to a couple of my regular nurses the issue of attitude came up in relation to ones overall quality of life and health. While the older and longer I have been on dialysis has certainly shaded and allowed differing perspectives on my overall philosophy about this. I have to a degree mellowed on my former "Rocky" theory of health care and personal responsibility, but still I regard ones core belief combined with a knowledge and education of ones personal health and mental situation towards surviving and thriving through any circumstance critical.

When I was four years old, sitting in a examination room at the Cleveland Clinic my kidney doctor at the time came bounding into the room and after and obligatory "hey tiger" began talking to my parents about everything that needed to be discussed and decided as to my care. My parents, grateful and polite, thanked him for all the information, but said to the doctor that he needed to talk to the patient in the room, me. As a four year old, and for all my years growing up I was directly included, and expected, to be a central party in my own care. So I learned to be responsible, and more importantly, aware of my own situation, medications, vitals, how to report my day to day health, and what was critical and how to accept the many forms of medical care that would become a regular part of my life.

I feel just as important as the above story and moral was an intangible belief that I have had, through my parents, my environment, all of it, or something else, that I have always believed in my own self. That I was, regardless of the process, that I was OK. As I am aware that a finger is no more of who I am that a lock of hair, I also know that my kidney, or my physical well being is only temporary, and in essence does not define who I am. By not being attached to the suffering, or the ecstasy I have learned, through hard lessons, that my life is not these "feelings". It does not always work that way in practice, but overall it has helped me through this unique life journey I've been on for almost forty years.

Its been a pretty good week as the infection from my freak arm injury has healed nicely, and dialysis has been a relative breeze. Since my ER visit 10 days ago I have run all but one day and have felt that everything is pretty good. My hemoglobin is hovering around 10 or 11 and breathing has been easy as well. I have had some good speed work, as my heart is catching up quickly to what I'm asking it to do. Also I'm on an easy streak with my renal diet and my fluid. When the heart and lungs work everything else is just so much easier to fall in line. It all works together. Except for the interruption in spring here in Midwest Ohio, have had some great outside runs last week, including a terrific bike/run day last Thursday, when it was really hot and humid before all the cold settled in.

I'll keep it a short post for now and come back to soon on a medical history entry, and other new stuff. I have my running stuff on for a workout in the next little bit. We will see if it is in or out?