Catching Up on Me!

You may have noticed that I’ve sort of been on sabbatical the past little while.

I posted on Monday about the reason behind it (in part).

But let’s move past the drama and leave that in the workplace. Let’s talk about what has been going on since the last time we really spoke.

FITBIT/WALK: I’ve continued on my path of making sure I get my 10,000 steps in by using my FitBit. I absolutely love being able to track my activity. I’ve done as much as about 18k in a day and most days I make it to 10k. Because of physical limitations I’ve been not on my feet so much this week, but I should be back to normal soon.

My niece Mika also got a FitBit so we can push each other. She was doing really well for a bit but has slowed down (but she is 13, so, you know – a teenager) but I’m trying  to push her. She was beating me and I need the inspiration!  If you still aren’t my friend on there – I’d love to be FitBit Pals!

ANNIVERSARY: On April 26^th my husband and I celebrated our 1 Year Anniversary. We were able to take a day off and go on a short weekend getaway up the California Coast. If you follow me on Facebook you will have seen a ton of pictures. We went to Hearst Castle and lingered on the coast. We had both been before, but not for over 10-15 years. It’s a gorgeous place and the history is incredible. If you ever get the change I recommend it (even though it is a little pricey - $25 per tour and I think there are 2 or 3 in total). We also went to Morro Bay the next day and had a great time.  

I’ll write a post just on this because the weekend deserves its own attention.

MOTHER’s DAY: Thomas and I celebrated Mother’s Day the night before by taking our mommy’s to dinner at Flemmings. It was an interesting night. My mom doesn’t speak English and his doesn’t speak Spanish. My mom was not happy with the food – her meat with undercooked (she likes it well done). We complained and they took it back but when they brought it out again it was still red inside. One of the managers asked her how it was and when she said it was still red he said that if they cooked it more it would be burned. Umm. No. That’s only if you don’t know how to cook a steak well done.  We were able to talk to someone else, who spoke Spanish, who was able to remove the steak from her bill and give her a free dessert. Score for our bank account!

VOTE!: On May 19^th we had a small local election for school board. I have voted in every single election since I turned 18 and am happy to continue with that. Unfortunately the candidate I wanted didn’t win – but it’s the fact that I voted that counts.

May 21^st: On May 21^st it was a year since my sister passed away. I left work early and went to the cemetery with my parents and Jonathan (who was at their house at the time). It was a gorgeous day and it was nice to know that my sister is somewhere that is beautiful and that has such a great view.

NAILS: For the first time since before my wedding I went to get a mani/pedi with my mom. I had stopped going to save money because $27 every month seemed like a bit much. However I WAS paying $75/mo for a housekeeper, but her last month was December – so that’s a lot of money I’ve saved on that… and I’ve been doing it instead which means… I deserve this! It was nice to be pampered again. I decided on the pedicure at the last minute and that ended up being a good decision.

PICNIC: My niece has been planning Memorial Day picnic’s for the past 5 years (except last year since I was in Argentina on my Honeymoon at the time). This year we had it at a nice park in which she held it the first year as well.  And apparently I don’t learn my lessons. The first time we had it there in 2012 I was walking barefoot on the grass (what I always did when I was little) and stepped on a freaking bee. It stung me on my toe of my left foot. It got swollen and I got a nice little picture of it. Guess what happened this year!? Once again I stepped on a bee as I walked back from the ice cream truck (same thing as last time). This time it was smack in the middle of my right foot. The first day I was fine but the itching woke me up in the middle of the night. By Tuesday morning I could barely walk.  Luckily I brought back Caladryl from Argentina last year and that has helped, but again on Tuesday night I woke up twice with incredible itchiness! The area got more swollen and red through Wednesday but finally overnight into Thursday it finally started to get better.

I was walking on the side of my foot which now has left that painful. *sigh*

This is the reason why my steps have not been up to 10k this week.

So that is me for the past month or two! 

Cliche Thankful Post

First off I want to wish everyone a fabulous Thanksgiving! 

I will be spending the morning making a fabulous leek tart (google it, it's amazing!) to take over to my in-law's. 

Their get together will be in the early afternoon and afterward Thomas and I will head over to dinner with my parents at Black Angus. They serve a traditional Thanksgiving meal as well as the whole menu. 

Which means soooo much food. Which started yesterday at work with honey baked ham, turkey, side dishes and the rest. 

I have a lot to be thankful this year. After all I got married and started the rest of my life with Thomas. I am healthy. I have my parents nearby and I get to see them often. I am thankful that they are around and healthy. I'm thankful to have 3 amazing nieces and an incredible nephew who are also healthy. 

I am also sad this Thanksgiving. My sister is not here with us and she will never be again. My parents are without their daughter and I know that their hearts ache with her loss. My heart aches for them. 

But even with our loss we have to be thankful for being here and together. 

What Fads Did You Partake In?

What a fun topic!!! I am guilty of participating in a ton of different fans while growing up in the 1990’s. Here are the ones I remember.

• POGs. I still have mine! Thomas thinks his are still in his moms’ garage somewhere. They are fun!

• Beanie Babies – I still have several of mine. My sister had a huge collection and I’m sure many of them still roam my moms’ house.

• Trolls – I had trolls growing up, but not too many.

• Tamagotchi/Nano pet – Yup. I had more than one. I even remember buying it at Mervyn’s. Those were the good times!
• Pokemon – I didn’t participate in this, but my husband was (is) an expert!
• Mini backpacks – I know I had one, but I’m sure there were more.
• Snap bracelets – who doesn’t love these??
• Scrunchies – I had many of these, although my hair is so thin that they didn’t stay in well.

• Drunkaroo’s – These are awesome. I actually found some at Wal*Mart a couple of years ago and bought a bunch.  Cinnamon Sugar cookies with frosting. Delicious!

I’m sure some people would add boy bands to the list, but  since Backstreet Boys are still around 21+ years later I think they can be kept off of the fad list.

As I added the pictures to this post I started feeling vey nostalgic. Partly this is due to me sharing a lot of those fads with my sister. Those were the good old days I guess. 

Dash for Organ Donation

Some of you know that my sister, Gabriela, passed away on May 21^st of this year. After 3 kidney transplants and periods of years on dialysis since she was just 9 months, old she passed away due to intestinal blockages. 

My sisters’ first transplant was a kidney from my mom and her second was from a man who died in a motorcycle accident. The last, in 2007, was from a selfless, caring, amazing person who decided that she wanted to help save someone’s life by giving part of herself. 

Katie Welch, in her mid-twenties at the time, and my sister came into communication and Katie told my sister she would be willing to donate one of her kidneys to my sister out of the kindness of her heart. The word for this is altruistic. Not many people that I’ve encountered over the years know this word because there aren’t many people out there who truly are to the extent that Katie is. 

The kidney that Katie donated was strong and gave my sister 7 years of happiness. Seven years of extended life, of not having to go to dialysis three times a week. 

Now she is once again doing something so very kind. Katie will be participating in the Dash for Organ Donation in Alaska. She is raising money for Alaska Kidney Patients Association Inc.  on September 20^th. 

I know that we are all asked to donate money every time we turn around and that times are tough economically and we don’t all have much to spare. But if between now and the race in September you happen to have a few extra dollars ($1? $5? $10?) please consider donating it to Katie and the Alaska Kidney Patients. 

If you don’t personally know someone who is in need of an organ transplant you may not know the following facts:

• 18 people die daily while waiting for a transplant, 14 of which were waiting for a new kidney.
• 1 deceased organ donar can save up to 8 lives
• 122,737 (as of 5/21/14) men, women and children currently need organ transplants
• Of those 100,602 are waiting for a kidney transplant.
• Every 10 minutes a name is added to that list. 
• In 2014 there were 14,029 kidney transplants. 9,314 of those came from deceased donors and 4,715 came from living donors. 
• In 2014 there was only 1 unrelated anonymous donation (like my sisters’). 

Thank you for reading this. If you have a moment to share on your blog or tweet about this it would be incredible. 

It's not typical confessions... but I confess I would love for you to help! 

Wednesday Confessional

I’ve had a busy few weeks and I’ve definitely been out of the blog world as well. I had pre-written posts for while I was in Argentina for my honeymoon, but when I got back…  I had no interest in sitting down on the couch (or anywhere) to blog.

So I confess…

• I thought I would be inspired to blog while on my trip, but it was the last thing on my mind.

• However, I did read most of the entries on my Bloglovin’ feed. I did not want to come home to 1000+ posts to catch up on.

• I was upset with my family because of something that occurred regarding my sisters’ death. I’m not going to go into detail here, but it caused me pain.

• I cried quite a bit the night I found out my sister passed. I was able to pull myself together to go to dinner, but I was unable to stop tears from coming. People probably thought Thomas and I were fighting.

• Leaving Argentina was bitter sweet. I missed home, but I enjoyed being with my extended family very much. It feels like a second home, and not like I’m just a visitor.

• I am not looking forward to going through all our pictures, deciding which ones to print, and then putting them into albums. My brother is good at captioning pictures, but I’m not. I get bored easily with that kind of stuff. I have to do it – for both the honeymoon and the wedding.

• Part of the reason I don’t want to go through the pictures is that the wedding pictures are pretty bad and it makes me very sad.

• I confess that I feel bad taking things from my sisters’ room. My mom is emptying it out and she offered me one of her computers. I took her Mac. I still haven’t set it up… and I think that’s why.

I think that’s enough confessions for one week, right? Next week my Wednesday post SHOULD be about my wedding day!

Goodbye Gabriela

I've spoken much about my sister here over the past month or two. 

For anyone just coming to my blog, let me give a quick history. 

My sister had had 3 kidney transplants in her 42 years of life. She got sick as a baby (9 months) and her life has been a nearly constant struggle since then. Her body has gone through dozens of surgeries (transplants, organ removal, hip replacement, etc) and she had to take dozens of medications over the course of her life to keep herself alive. 

Unfortunately those same medical miracles that kept her alive for the past 4 decades also destroyed her. 

On March 28 she went into the hospital due to an obstructed bowel. She got to go home on her 42nd birthday on April 1st, but returned to the hospital on 7th. 

She has now left Cedars Sinai Medical Center, but unfortunately it wasn't to come home - at least not the physical home she shared with my parents (and myself until my recent marriage). 

My sister passed away on May 21st, 2014 at 7:10pm (PST). She had been sedated due to the trauma her body had been going through and the anxiety that being intubated caused. She did not know she was going to die. She thought this was just another surgery she had to overcome. 

She was a strong person and fought her entire life. When she was 9 months old the doctors told my parents she had 10 hours to live. Thanks to her will to live and my parents dedication to her she lived well beyond that.

I'm writing this from an airport in Argentina during my honeymoon. Before we left for Argentina (where my entire extended family lives) I went to the hospital for a meeting with the doctor's. There they told us what we already knew... she would die. The surgeon told us that there was nothing she could do anymore. 

After the meeting I went to my sister's room. Her eyes were open but she wasn't there. I spoke to her and I cried and I told her I loved her (even though we haven't gotten along in the past decade). She took care of me growing up (she is was 12 years older than me). I said my goodbye's knowing I would not likely see her again. Although I left the US knowing she would die, I was not expecting it to be so quick. 

Unfortunately, on Monday the 19th when the doctors went in to wash her abdomen they found that she had several hemorrhages and that her liver had given out (due to being fed via IV since she could not be fed directly to her stomach). They gave her a week to live. On Tuesday they gave her a few hours. Finally, on Wednesday, they removed her ventilator. She lived for an hour past that. 

She is done suffering and she lived far past the lifespan she was given as an infant. I am sad, my family is sad, and we are suffering. But I believe she is with us as all our relatives and loved ones are. 

Rest in peace, Gabriela. We love you.

Throwback Thursday: I wanted to be....

I almost skipped this week’s prompt – only because I haven’t been able to catch up on my life and not doing it seemed a lot easier than sitting down and actually thinking about it.  However, as I sat at work Thursday I thought about it and decided that late will be better than never and this one is close to my heart these days.

Many of you will know, from previous posts, that my sister is currently in the ICU at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She is not doing too well at the moment due to intestinal issues. But before she had intestinal problems she had chronic kidney problems. My sister got sick at 9 months and has had 3 transplants in her 42 years of life. I was born when she was 12 ½ years old, and 3 years before she got her 2^nd transplant.

Because I grew up around hospitals and doctors there was only one thing that I wanted to be when I grew up: a “kidney doctor” so I could cure my sister. This is actually written somewhere, in some book, by my mom. Now I know they are called “nephrologists” but back then I simply saw them as “kidney doctors”.

Unfortunately I was never smart enough to be a doctor, not even close, but luckily my sister has had some of the best doctors out there and kidney-wise is doing perfectly, after receiving a 3^rd kidney in 2006 (19 years after the 2^nd one). If I were little now I would probably want to be a surgeon that could take care of my sister’s intestinal hole.

Instead of being a doctor I got a degree in Journalism and then a teaching credential. I am doing neither, instead I am working the public sector as what is basically a social worker (but not nearly as nice). I love my job, though, so it worked out in the end.

My Busy Weekend Wrap Up

If you follow me on Twitter or even on Instagram you will know that I had an eventful weekend. No relaxing for me whatsoever. Go Go Go.

F R I D A Y / /

On Friday I went to lunch with my fiancée at Stone Fire Grill. One of the perks of working around the corner from your man is lunch dates can be as often as you want. When I got back from my lunch I checked my e-mail at work and saw that my mom had sent a message telling me that my dad had taken my sister to the hospital because she was in so much pain.

My sister is on MediCal (Medicaid in other states) and SSI/SSP. She became sick when she was 9 months old and has had 3 kidney transplants, making her permanently disabled (her story will come in another post, I spent 3 hours writing it all up on my iPad on Friday night only for Blogger to lose it!) and eligible for MediCal and other government services. Her normal hospital is Cedars Sinai (one that usually has many celebrity ‘guests’) but my dad was unable to get her that because she was in so much pain. We live about 45 minutes from Cedars but all she could withstand was the 20 minute drive to Tarzana Providence Medical Center.

My mom’s e-mail was scare – it basically said that my sister had 2 hernia’s in her intestines and if she didn’t have surgery right away she would die.

I won’t make this suspenseful, my sister is very much alive and recuperating from her surgery. But let me backtrack and tell the story of that evening.

My brother took my mom (who doesn’t drive) to the hospital after the kids got home from school and when I got off work an hour or two later I called her to see what was going on. She told me that they were trying something non-surgical to clear up the problem so I could go home and eat dinner and then if I could come to the hospital to bring her some things she had packed earlier but forgot to put in the car. I agreed and went home. I caught up on some Argentinean novelas and as the first was ending my mom called back saying that what the doctors’ were trying wasn’t working and that she would be going into surgery in 2 hours so if I could please come and bring the things so that my dad could go home for a while.

I got to the hospital just past 6:30pm and as I walked off the elevator on the floor of her room my mom was walking past them. They had just taken her into the OR. I went to talk to the nurse who told me that it would be a complicated surgery and that my sister could possible lose her kidney. They weren’t sure how long it would last but that if there was any news they would contact me.

My mom and I sat in the room my sister had been assigned and (as I mentioned above) I typed up my sisters’ life story per my mom’s memories. Sometime later my dad arrived and I went out to pick up some dinner. At some point during this is when the 5.1 Earthquake happened. I didn't feel it since we were in the center of the large building (and I was disappointed about that). 

My parents got sleepy.

The surgeon finally came out at 10:10pm (how do they stay up so late and do something so important?). He let us know that everything had gone well and her vitals were fine. We just had to wait to see if she would go to the ICU or back to the regular room. After what seemed like an eternity she was taken back to her room. My dad stayed while I took my mom home so she could sleep before going back the next morning for a 24 hour stay there. 

S A T U R D A Y / /

I took my mom back to the hospital early on Saturday morning. I stayed with her for most of the morning. My dad arrived around lunch time and we left my sister to sleep while we went to the cafeteria. While this hospital is very nice with a great staff, the food is not up to par. Soon after that I left and went to Thomas' house. 

We didn't get home until past midnight on Friday/Saturday, so when I got back to Thomas' house I went to sleep. I wanted to nap for an hour but I fell asleep for nearly 3. After my very relaxing nap Thomas and I headed to do some browsing of furniture. I wanted to have an outing where we could look at things and see what the other liked. This is where we discovered we have very different taste. We did agree on some items (although Thomas said he could change his mind on them).

Thomas likes items that have a lot of decorations on them, something I might have seen in some of my friends homes 20 years ago. I'm more modern, I think.

We did agree on this one, it's dark wood that he likes but simple enough for me. 

We enjoyed some In-N-Out in between shopping and then we went back to his house (where I broke down again), did some laundry, and watched a movie. 

S U N D A Y / /

Sunday was my bridal shower. While I looked forward to the bridal shower I also dreaded it. I knew that a lot of attention would be on me and I didn't not like that. It was not as bad as I thought it would be, however. It was very helpful that my mom was there (a trooper, she was going on some 30+ hours of being awake). Thomas and I got a lot of nice gifts (some of which were jus for me) that we will enjoy when we move in together. All pictures are on my Facebook page, but here are a few (I'll also make a post just about the party itself):

After the party I was exhausted. The weekend had caught up to me. Nikki spent the night (since she hadn't on Friday, which she always does).

It was a very long weekend. Stressful and fun and tiring. This week is not shaping up to be any better (lots of home buying stress left!).