He will be home today. Or rather tonight. We will be seeing our son for the first time since last Christmas, which is a long time for a mom. He will be driving through a nasty fire area and some rain on his very long 800+ mile drive. I will be glancing out the window all day...
We have invited Wayne, Jill and the boys over for a simple outdoor meal on Sunday afternoon. Sausages, beans, ice creams kind of meal. Time with William. I am going to cut the grass this afternoon so I don't have to do it while William is here. The grass has slowed down with the coming of Fall so it will still be fine by Sunday.
The big news is that I phoned another plumber yesterday morning, he returned the call around 1:30, we met at the house and within 40 minutes, the pressure valve was replaced and he was gone. Simple and done. Never heard from the other plumber. Grrrrrr.
The ILD Patient Appreciation luncheon was lovely. I ran into the coordinator from the lung transplant clinic, we talked and shared email addresses. She had lost over ninety-pounds with my nutritionist but had put about half of it back on. There also was a mom and daughter I met over a year ago at a lecture, the mom had just be diagnosed with IPF and they were in such a better place mentally from when I first met them. They also were sitting at the same table with a woman who was transplanted four years ago. She gave them lots of hope.
I ran into the woman who arrived at an ILD Support Group a couple years ago and promptly fell apart. She needed lung transplants but was overweight. At the end of the meeting, I gave her the weight management clinic information but it took her two years to contact them. She was in dire need of new lungs but was very overweight. We happened to bump into each other before a nutritionist appointment last February. She kind of drove me nuts as she always played the victim during the meetings but I began to kind of like her. When I saw her yesterday, she was a totally different person. Confident and less a victim. She was also 125 pounds lighter. Well, what do you know? Her health improved to greatly with the weight loss that SHE NO LONGER IS ILL ENOUGH FOR TRANSPLANTS. How is that for news? I was so happy for her.
She had asked a question during the presentation: I want to know how long I will live post transplant using my age and health. When we talked together after this question, I told her that all the numbers were based on a group of individuals. We are all different. According to the numbers, I should be dead long ago. It doesn't matter what the statistics are. She is an individual. She should focus on staying fit and live every moment to its fullest, with or without a transplant. It was almost like she was asking for a guarantee of of certain number of years post-transplant. There are no guarantees. She nodded and said, "You're right. I never thought of it like that."
Another question asked during the presentation: The number of years of the university's longest living lung transplant recipients. They have several approaching twenty years and one who is currently at twenty-three years post-transplant. That is amazing.
I am looking forward to a facial this morning and yard work this afternoon. We are going to dinner tonight but do not expect to see our son until late in the evening. I know he worked a concert last night so he probably didn't get to bed until 2AM. Will be begin is journey early or late? That is the question. I will eventually hear from him via text during his long drive home. Home. The house will feel complete once again.
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